


Cedarbridge

by Kryptaria, stephrc79



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types
Genre: Halloween, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 01:26:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria, https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephrc79/pseuds/stephrc79
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cedarbridge Asylum, named for the idyllic river that once crossed the property, was one of the longest continually operated mental healthcare facilities in the country.  The initial building, Cedarbridge House of the Poor, was opened in 1608. In the centuries that followed, it served as a mental asylum, a home for indigents, and a tuberculosis research facility.</p><p>In 1979, after almost four hundred years of bloody, violent history, Cedarbridge was finally closed for good. It's been abandoned ever since.</p><p>Until Q and James Bond are sent there to scout out the site as a possible new home for Q Branch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Седарбридж](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6353935) by [Christoph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christoph/pseuds/Christoph)



> Special thanks to Kymethra and Rayvanfox for their great beta work!
> 
> Thank you to the lovely lovely [Ranuel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranuel/pseuds/Ranuel) for the [ cover arts](http://ranuel.deviantart.com/art/Cedarbridge-Cover-410953423)!
> 
> ~~~~

It had been almost a month since Bond’s last mission. A month of firing ranges, trainee lessons, and seemingly endless paperwork. The world had reached an horrendously annoying level of calm, and Bond was bored. Dangerously bored.

So when he went sniffing around M’s office, looking for something to do, he was surprised to be handed a mission on the spot. M gave no details, other than to tell Bond to secure an SUV from Transport, dress casually, and pick up Q at 0600 the following morning, at home.

A local mission, then, unless he was driving Q to the airport or something equally mundane. Why assign a Double O — even a bored one — to chauffeur duty, though? Besides, Q didn’t fly. Something local, then. Hacking the uptight bastards in the Home Office, perhaps. Of course, that didn’t explain the ‘casual dress’ requirement.

Bond hadn’t come up with any answers by the following morning. For all he knew, Q needed help moving his bloody furniture. But at this point, anything was better than more paperwork, so Bond left early enough to avoid traffic, stopped for coffee, and then programmed Q’s address into the satnav.

Q’s house was a neat little semi-detached with a garage. Bond turned onto the drive and turned off the engine. He got out of the SUV and set the alarm out of habit. The SUV was an upgrade from the in-town saloons, though not a Q Branch special with offensive capabilities. He went to the recessed front door, knocked, and turned to look at a neglected, winter-bare garden buried under the night’s snowfall.

It took Q almost a full minute to answer. He was awake and alert, dressed more casually than Bond had ever seen him, in faded blue jeans, a thick jumper, and hiking boots. But what caught Bond’s attention was the blood — a smudge on Q’s lower lip, and a thick line welling up from where his right thumb was pressed to the side of his finger. Cold wind, thick with snow, blew at Bond’s back, drawing a shiver across his nape.

“Come in,” Q invited, paying more attention to his finger than Bond. “Give me two minutes to put a plaster on this.”

“Is everything all right?” Bond asked, watching a drop of blood form and slide over Q’s finger.

“Paper cut.” Q beckoned Bond inside and went down a narrow hallway beside a steep staircase leading up into darkness.

Bond closed and locked the front door before following Q into a small kitchen. Q was at the sink, running water over his finger. With his free hand, he rifled through a plastic first aid kit, scattering the contents across the counter. On the table, the remains of Q’s breakfast — eggs and toast — sat between an open laptop and an avalanche of old papers, blueprints, and mimeographs that had spilled from a file folder onto the floor. One of the old, crumbling blueprints was edged in blood.

Bond walked to stand beside Q. The blood was still dark, despite the running water. “Are you sure that’s just a paper cut?” He gently took the box of plasters from Q’s hand and opened it; he took one out, though he was tempted to suggest steri-strips or even a couple of stitches.

“Thanks. It’s that bloody old paper.” Q frowned down at his finger. “Site documents related to the mission. I’d suggest you look through them, but we don’t need you bleeding as well.” He turned off the water, and the cut immediately started bleeding again. “Shit.”

“May I see?”

“It’s a  _paper cut_ ,” Q complained, holding out his wounded finger for Bond’s examination. Drops of blood fell in a steady rhythm. “Now the damned historical society will probably sue me for defacing their documents.”

“If they do, you have an entire department of assassins to call on for help,” Bond said, pinching Q’s finger to hold the cut closed. “How is it you spend all your time around explosives without a scratch, but one piece of paper and your finger looks like the wrong end of a bad 80s horror film?”

“It  _shouldn’t_.” Q worked his way around Bond, forcing him to turn so he could keep hold of the finger. When they’d traded places, Q opened a drawer and started digging through batteries, wires, and assorted hand tools. “This should have stopped as soon as I applied pressure.”

“Do we need to take you to A&E? I’d hate for you to bleed to death in the car,” Bond teased, hiding his worry. “It is government property, after all.”

Q laughed quietly. “It wouldn’t be the first time Transport’s had to deal with blood on the upholstery, I’m certain. Aha.” He grinned and pulled a small plastic tube from the drawer. “Thought I had some left. Help me get the cap off?”

“Superglue?”

“That or I cauterise it with a bloody soldering iron, and then we  _will_  end up in A&E, and we can’t afford to delay the mission for that sort of time.” He held out the tube of glue.

It wasn’t as if Bond hadn’t glued wounds closed before. He took the glue, removed the cap, and then pinched the wound closed. It was bleeding  _a lot_. “And what  _is_  the mission? I didn’t get any files — just keys to a secure SUV and your home address.”

“Ah. Yes, I tried to scan in that paperwork” — Q nodded at the spilled pages — “but three different scanners choked to death. I finally gave up. We need to find a new home for Q Branch. You’ve heard of Cedarbridge Asylum?”

“Vaguely,” Bond said, squeezing a drop of glue across the centre of the wound. He quickly pushed the glue across, covering the entire length, before he looked up sharply. “Wait. An  _old mental hospital_  as the new home for Q Branch?”

Q shrugged tensely. “Easily secured grounds, substantial buildings with equally substantial basements — it’s ideal.” He tentatively flexed his finger; the glue held. “Thank you.”

Bond capped the tube, careful not to get glue on his own fingers. “Why there?”

“I had a very short list of approved sites from which to choose. Cedarbridge Asylum is the best of the lot.”

“Better than your tunnels?” When Q turned away, Bond caught his wrist and said, “That needs a plaster over it.”

Q huffed but turned back, saying, “The tunnels are off the list. Historical preservation society.”

“That’s nonsense.” Bond picked up the plaster and ripped it open. “We can’t afford the disruption. In times of war, it’s best to use what we’ve got.”

“We aren’t currently at war.”

Bond smoothed the plaster over the cut and met Q’s eyes. “This is MI6, Q. We’re  _always_  at war.”

 

~~~

 

_Cedarbridge Asylum, named for the idyllic river that once crossed the property, was one of the longest continually operated mental healthcare facilities in the country. The initial building, Cedarbridge House of the Poor, was opened in 1608, after the passage of the Poor Law Acts in 1598 and 1601. The original design was for the county’s poor to live and work at Cedarbridge, creating a self-sustaining farm._

_Critically, the farm’s overseers were not physicians. They were paid a stipend for each resident, meant to contribute to medical care, food, clothing, and other expenses. Within twenty years, however, this stipend became the sole concern for the overseers. Overcrowding resulted in inhumane conditions for the residents, and the overseers began to take in even the most violent of the mentally ill. Instead of being rehabilitated, the violent residents were confined, sometimes for years at a time, and barely given sufficient food to survive._

_Briefly, Cedarbridge House of the Poor became a mental asylum, where the resident physicians supplemented their income by permitting curious holiday-goers from the cities to see the inmates, who were kept in caged alcoves with no thought for privacy or rehabilitation._

_The 1744 Vagrancy Act reverted part of Cedarbridge to its old function as a poor house and included funding to add to the original building. Now operating under the name Cedarbridge Lunatic Asylum and Home for Vagrant Persons, it became a dumping ground for the county’s unwanted, indigents, insane, and troubled._

_In 1788, Cedarbridge constructed a richly decorated, luxurious facility for single lunatics, as they were called — individuals, most often from wealth or of noble birth, whose healthcare was subsidised by a rich family. Admission of these single lunatics was not regulated, and quickly Cedarbridge became a place of confinement for unwanted wives and daughters. By 1827, it was commonly known in the county that Cedarbridge’s generous open visitation policy for its single lunatic residents was nothing more than a thin cover for what had become a violent brothel catering to the most depraved patrons._

_By the mid-1800s, Cedarbridge had returned to its original purpose as a poorhouse. It also acted as a long-term care facility for the sick and elderly who could no longer be housed in local hospitals._

_After World War I, Cedarbridge was one of several hospitals that attempted to restart England’s tuberculosis research programme. Europe had lost many talented young scientists, and serious medical research investigations suffered. However, the programme was overshadowed by a lack of funding and ethical oversight combined with a wealth of ‘unwanted’ test subjects and a desperate desire to produce results at any cost._

_In 1966, Cedarbridge’s tuberculosis research programme ended in disgrace, and the facility once again became a mental asylum. BBC investigative reporter Henry Chance broke the Cedarbridge story by smuggling a camera into the facility. The award-winning documentary, **People in the Shadows** , began what has now become known as the era of hospital scandals. In 1972, the establishment of the role of Health Service Commissioner promised a new start for mental healthcare in the UK. By 1979, Cedarbridge was closed, its administrators placed under investigation, and its remaining patients transferred to other facilities._

Before leaving Q’s house, Bond had looked over the old blueprints for long enough to conclude that they were all but useless. Over the centuries, buildings had been added, modified, and demolished, and there wasn’t nearly enough documentation in Q’s files to account for it all.

Instead, Bond allowed Q to take the first half of the drive in exchange for the use of Q’s tablet. Then they swapped at a petrol station where they’d topped up the tank and bought two cups of horrid coffee.

As Bond mulled over what he’d read, he became aware of a dull ache creeping into his hands. He took his eyes off the road long enough to see that his knuckles had gone white from how hard he was gripping the steering wheel.

In all his years of government work, he’d seen some of the worst depravities of man, but this sort of thing made him sick. Hospitals were meant to heal, not to victimise the ill. It wasn’t just one step too far. It was one step closer to Hell.

A sign caught his attention, a brief flash of dark green and dirty white print. Throwing a quick glance towards the satnav, Bond changed lanes, just as he saw a second sign that read  _Cedarbridge Hospital_. The screen showed another twelve miles to go, but that was to the nearest village; it hadn’t recognised the exact address from Q’s files.

Q looked up from his mobile. “What’s wrong?”

“There was an old sign for Cedarbridge Hospital. Sounds like a good place to start.”

Q nodded and went back to frowning at his mobile. “Sorry, I should have mapped this out. Part of my job as Quartermaster.”

“It’s all right,” Bond replied absently, staring intently out the windshield. “I’m good at finding what’s not easily found.” He turned his head slightly to give Q a little wink.

“Then you’re in the wrong profession,” Q said absently. “Can I borrow your phone? I can’t reestablish a connection.”

As Bond handed over his mobile, he said, “Not really, when you think about it. I’m an assassin. Many of the people I come across are well aware their time is running out. I promise you, the hardest thing in this world is to find a dead man walking when he knows that I’m coming for him.”

Q looked up, startled. “I was thinking —” he began, before he looked down at Bond’s mobile. “Never mind.”

“What?” Bond asked. “What were you thinking?”

Q slouched down in his seat, determinedly stabbing his finger at the phone. “Tomb robber,” he finally conceded.

Bond burst out laughing. “Tomb robber? That’s  _definitely_ not what I was thinking. But god, can you imagine?”

“The mummy’s curse.” Q managed a little laugh. “Or those intricate traps, where a room slowly fills with sand and the only way out is to light the oil lamps in order to trigger the secret door.” He prodded Bond’s arm with the mobile, saying, “Here.”

“Everything all right?”

“No connection.” Q shook his head in frustration. “That’s an MI6 phone. Boosted antenna. You should have coverage  _everywhere_  in Great Britain.”

“Apparently not.” Bond dropped the phone into his pocket and slowed the SUV. The snow had started falling harder ever since they’d left the city. Now, it came down in thick swirls, and while he trusted his own driving, he didn’t trust the other idiots on the road. Not that there were many of those. Even the other tyre tracks here were dusted with fresh snow.

Q gave up on his mobile and tucked it into his parka. “You’re certain this is the right road?”

“Not at all,” Bond admitted absently, concentrating on staying on the road. Without mobile coverage, he’d need to use the SUV’s emergency beacon to summon help from MI6. “It looks like the right area, based on the photos.”

“You found photos?” Q leaned forward and turned the heater to full blast. Like Bond, he was dressed in casual, warm clothes, though he’d neglected to bring gloves. He shoved his hands into his pockets with a little shiver. “How did it look? The facility, I mean. There was something about a bat colony nesting there.”

“It looked unsafe,” Bond admitted warily. “I also found the history, dating back to when it opened in the 1600s. Saying it has a colourful history is... being kind. Do you really not know any more about this place than what you read in the file?”

Q shrugged. “The history isn’t significant, except that we can control any historical society here. The society in London has certainly interfered enough with our occupation of the tunnels.”

“I’m not talking about some bloody historical society, Q. I’m talking about what actually happened inside those walls.” Bond shook his head and slowed even more, glad to have even fading tyre tracks to follow. Winter-bare trees clawed at either side of the road. Thick limbs hung dangerously low overhead, obscuring what little light came through the stormclouds. “This isn’t the sort of asylum where you send dear, sweet granny because she’s gone fuzzy. This is right out of a horror film — one that leaves you unsettled because there’s something  _real_  about it.”

Q shot Bond a shocked look. “You can’t —” he said, though he cut off when the SUV bounced suddenly. The road under the tyres went rough. Wary of potholes, Bond slowed the SUV to a crawl. Q grabbed the handhold on the door and leaned forward as much as the seatbelt would allow. “Did we miss a turnoff?”

“No. No turnoffs, no signs,” Bond said, staring through the windscreen. The wipers were distracting, smearing moisture over the glass, and the headlights reflected off the snow in a blinding glare.

“Bond...” Q shook his head.

Bond pressed the brake as hard as he dared, realising only then what was missing. “Tyre tracks.”

Q twisted, looking back over his shoulder through the rear window. “The road doesn’t even feel tarmacked.”

“It’s tarmacked — just not recently,” Bond said confidently as he started driving again. “Too much traction for dirt or gravel.”

“Are you  _certain_  this is the road?” Q asked quietly.

“No. But we haven’t passed any turnoffs, and the sign said this was the Cedarbridge exit.” Bond shrugged, thinking the other cars must have turned around, though he couldn’t recall passing any other drivers in either direction. Perhaps the tyre tracks there and back had been made before he’d exited the dual carriageway.

 

~~~

 

Already, Q was certain Cedarbridge was a horrid site, and they hadn’t even arrived yet. Bad road that couldn’t be improved without being noticed; obscure location that would  _definitely_  attract attention with any significant amount of traffic; not even 3G coverage, much less anything more advanced.

Cedarbridge Asylum was actually the worst candidate on a list of sites that were all horrible. Q had come up with logical reasons to eliminate them all, but he knew he had to make a show of giving at least one site a chance. Only then would he be able to challenge Mallory and present a lovely, long list of reasons why Q Branch should remain in the tunnels, and to hell with the historical society.

Q had chosen Cedarbridge not because he wanted to visit a decrepit, abandoned mental asylum but because he didn’t need to. His original plan had been to take a drive out into the country, have brunch somewhere near the asylum, and be back in London by midday. In his imagination, he’d pictured less hostile weather. He’d even considered going for an early afternoon jog in the park.

He hadn’t planned to actually go to the site. And he definitely  _hadn’t_  planned on having to drag a bored, off-mission Double O along with him.

But he could make this work. Bond had already shown distaste for the site. With a little luck, Bond might be willing to do paperwork in the form of a site survey. Or maybe he’d just give Mallory his feedback in person. Loudly. The thought made Q grin.

Fifteen or twenty minutes went by in tense silence, punctuated only by the rapid beat of the wipers trying valiantly to fight off the accumulating snow, before Bond said, “Finally. It’s up ahead, on the left.”

Q looked up too late to see the sign. “Well, the isolation will be useful,” he said thoughtfully. “One access road, easy to control.”

The turn led to a short, winding road that ended abruptly. Without warning, Bond slammed on the brakes, throwing Q against his seatbelt. A double-gate barred their path, black iron rods stark against the snow that filled the air. A chain stretched between the iron bars, pulled taut; the gates were slightly open, one inwards, one out. To either side, Q saw a high, crumbling brick wall.

“I suppose this is it,” he ventured, though he couldn’t see a sign or any hint of buildings beyond the gates. All he could see were snow and trees.

“Looks like,” Bond muttered with a tight grimace. He put the SUV in neutral and put on the handbrake. The temperature plummeted as he opened his door, and Q huddled into his parka, shivering. Bond slammed his door, momentarily disappearing from sight before he stepped over to the black gate.

An irrational fear hit Q as he pictured Bond ducking under the chain and disappearing into the trees. Q fumbled to unlatch his seatbelt with cold hands. But instead of stepping through the gates, Bond turned back to face the SUV and beckoned.

Q shut off the engine, grabbed the keys, and got out, shivering. He shoved his bare hands into his pockets. “I should’ve brought gloves,” he said as he walked carefully over the snow to where Bond was waiting. He held out the keys for him. “Need help with the gates?”

“That gate won’t be moving,” Bond said, nodding to the right. He took the keys from Q, placing them in his own jacket pocket.

Q had to walk a few paces to see why. The gate was hinged to open inwards, not out, as it had been — with great force, apparently. The hinges were bent; the lowest bolts pulled partially out of the brick. It must have happened some time ago, because everything was crusted with corrosion that took on a dark, almost bloody hue in the shadows and damp from the snow. Tetanus jab or not, Q had no desire to touch it. With only one undamaged gate, there was no chance of getting the SUV through.

He didn’t want to leave the SUV behind, but he saw no alternative. “We’ll have to go ahead on foot. I don’t recall any of the documents having a combination to the lock.”

“There’s no lock,” Bond said grimly.

Q looked at the chain, crossing the snow quickly as he searched for a lock, but didn’t find one. The steel links were dark and stuck through with leaves and twigs, but there was no hint of rust or corrosion. Not until he was right in front of the chain, stretched between the gates just above a cross-bar at chest-level, did he see a thick line across one of the links.

“This was welded,” he said, lifting one hand to touch. His finger was still a good two centimetres away when he felt a shock jolt up into his arm, making the cut throb. He swore and jerked his hand back, fingers twitching hard enough that the glue pulled at his skin.

“Are you all right?” Bond asked.

“Just a shock.” Q resisted the urge to rub at his stinging finger and instead shoved his hands into his pockets again.

Bond nodded, though his worried frown didn’t ease. “I think we’re walking from here. This gate’s not going anywhere. And don’t you dare tell me to ‘put my back into it’.”

Q burst out laughing at the memory, the sound bouncing off the thick trees all around. “The train didn’t run you over, did it?” he pointed out. He went back towards the SUV, adding over his shoulder, “Just because I see to your kit doesn’t mean I don’t know how to motivate you. I’m entirely willing to give you a kick in the arse when necessary, Bond.”

“Oh, I’m well aware. But be warned, Quartermaster” — Bond smiled devilishly at Q — “I’ve been known to retaliate.”

The door hid Q’s grin. He leaned into the SUV and retrieved his rucksack. Instead of packing his laptop, he used the bag to hold his tablet and a couple of bottles of water. Without knowing if the electricity was on, he’d also packed a torch — probably a wise decision.

As Bond opened his own door, Q smiled across at him and said, “You’re welcome to try.”

 

~~~

 

The driveway was lost under two inches of snow. Bond could only distinguish it from the surrounding earth by the rough space between trees that had encroached, roots breaking the tarmac into jagged chunks. Barely two metres separated the trunks — not enough for the SUV, even if the gates had opened properly. As he walked away from the gate, he told himself he glanced back to make sure Q was all right on the slippery ground — that it had nothing to do with a last look back at safety before going on a mission.

Almost immediately, the drive curved sharply to the left. After another twenty paces, the gate was out of sight. Bond’s steps slowed, and Q caught up with him to walk silently at his side. Just enough light filtered through the trees and snow that Bond didn’t need his torch. He glanced at Q and saw he’d removed his glasses, probably to keep them from getting spotted with snow.

“How well can you see without those things?” he asked. He’d never seen Q without his glasses on and just assumed he was completely blind without them.

“I need them primarily for long distance — especially driving at night. Too much time working with computers,” Q commented, glancing down as they reached a small incline. His steps slowed, but his foot skidded on a slick patch.

Bond caught him by the elbow. “Careful. There’s ice under the snow.”

“I’m perfectly aware of that,” Q snapped and shot Bond a glare. He tugged free from Bond’s grasp and righted himself. “I won’t fall.”

“All right. Sorry,” Bond responded soothingly, taken aback by Q’s response.

Q nodded, taking one hand out of his coat pocket long enough to shift his rucksack onto both shoulders. The rustle of padded nylon straps on the waterproof shell was loud in the too-quiet forest.

They’d gone around another full S-curve, perhaps a hundred metres, before Q finally broke the silence. “You don’t need to coddle me, Bond. I’ve never been interested in spending hours in the gym, but I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. More importantly, I know my limitations.”

Bond stopped, waiting as Q took a couple more steps before he turned to look back. When their eyes met, Bond said, “I’ve never been in the field with you, for any reason. You know your limitations, but I don’t.”

Q took a deep breath, meeting Bond’s eyes steadily. After a few silent seconds, he nodded. “All right. I apologise. If there’s something I think you need to know, I’ll inform you.” His lips twitched up in a very faint smile as he added, “You’re welcome to do the same, though there’s probably no need. I’ve read every file the government has on you.”

Bond let out a short laugh and started to walk again. A more comfortable silence settled between them. Admittedly, he’d been looking at Q in much the same way he’d regarded Q’s predecessor. Major Boothroyd had been a genius, yes, but in the field, he’d been... marginally useful at best, and a liability at worst. He had no sense of self-preservation.

 _This_  Q seemed far less reckless, which was really all that mattered. As long as he wouldn’t rush headlong into danger, Bond could stop looking at him as an asset to be protected and instead focus on the danger —

That thought brought him up short.  _What danger?_  They were going into an old building that presented the usual hazards — uncertain floors, asbestos, broken glass — but it wasn’t a booby trapped criminal headquarters or a gang’s meth lab. In the photos he’d reviewed, there hadn’t been any sign of graffiti at all, in fact.

He looked around at the snowy trees, wishing that the cloud cover would break enough to admit even a little more daylight. That had to be it. The stormy darkness was contributing to the unease brought on by an overactive imagination and too little sleep.

The trees to either side of the path grew ever closer together, until Q’s shoulder bumped into Bond’s. Bond slowed, scuffing a boot through the snow. It was only an inch deep, but that seemed excessive, even with the narrow break in the tree branches above the path. It had only started snowing some time during the night. There were patches of bare earth between the trees to either side, giving the forest a mottled, sickly appearance. So why was the snow on the path so thick?

It reminded him of the road, clear of tyre tracks. He shivered and told himself it was just the cold.

Just as Bond uncovered a thin layer of broken pavement over wet earth, Q said, “Well. That’s...”

Bond looked up again and saw that Q had walked a few more paces ahead. Chastising himself for not paying attention, he caught up and stopped beside Q. He followed Q’s gaze until he froze, arrested by the sight of the building that had seemingly come out of nowhere.

Dark, wet brick stretched up towards the overcast sky, broken by dull white window frames. The surviving glass showed an interior that was just as black as the open and shattered panes. Trees had long since overtaken any landscaping or paths surrounding the building. Winter-bare branches scraped at the brick walls, and roots dug at the foundation.

Perhaps the narrow double doors at the top of the cement stairs had once been welcoming; now, they hung almost completely closed, a broken chain dangling from one handle as though in warning, reminding Bond of a prison cell door just waiting to be locked behind anyone who entered.

“You’ve got to be joking.  _This_  is a potential site for Q Branch?” Bond wondered, refusing to take his eyes off the front doors. “Whose bloody idea was it to include  _this_  on the list?”

Q gave a long-suffering sigh. “No idea. I was presented with fifteen sites. This is the only one that wasn’t entirely unsuitable.” He shot Bond an unhappy look, adding, “The tunnels  _weren’t_  on the list.”

“If the outside is any indication, the tunnels might be the only possible choice.”

Q shot him a startled look before turning quickly away as though guilty. He was hiding something — Bond was certain of it.

Without looking back at Bond, Q said, “There’s supposedly a basement. I suspect all the buildings have basements with connecting tunnels. They might do.”

“We’ll need to make note of any weak floors we come across before heading down there, then,” Bond noted as he followed Q. “Weak floors mean crumbling ceilings.”

“Wouldn’t you rather find out from underneath, rather than falling through?” Q asked with a wry grin as he reached for the door with the chain around the handle. Bond’s first instinct was to stop him — they had no idea what was beyond that door. He almost grabbed for Q’s hand, but Q jerked back the instant his fingers brushed the metal. He flexed his fingers and gave his hand a little shake before saying, “Shocked again.” He tugged his cuff down over his hand, pulled the door open, and stepped into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

“This is... charming,” Q said, looking down at the plaster dust settling around his boots. He wasn’t put off by darkness or decay, but this was extreme. The faint stormy daylight didn’t penetrate far beyond the narrow double doors. He slipped off his rucksack and unzipped it to get out his tablet and torch. “It’s too damp to worry about stirring up asbestos dust, isn’t it? Should we walk lightly?”

Bond pulled out his torch and did a quick sweep, flooding light onto dank hallways and walls where the paint was curling in on itself. “Charming,” he repeated with a hollow laugh. “The Bates Motel was more welcoming than this.”

Q couldn’t disagree. He pulled his rucksack back over one shoulder as he turned on his torch. Both torches were MI6 issue — Q chose not to ask if Bond had checked his out from inventory or just nicked it — and despite the powerful LEDs neither one did a damn thing to drive back the shadows more than a few metres.

Bond kept switching his aim between two dark hallways and the staircase that went up six steps before it split at the back wall and continued upstairs, to the left and right. Q turned his on what was obviously a reception desk set behind a half-height wall to the right. It had once been beautiful, rich wood, though it was scarred and blackened with creeping mould. The surface was marred with verdigris from metal channels which supported a fractured pane of security glass embedded with chicken wire.

The glass flared brightly from the torchlight, dazzling Q’s eyes. He turned away and closed his eyes to ease the sting. Careful not to drop his tablet, he unzipped his parka. Unless it was snowing inside the building, there was no reason not to put his glasses back on. “Security glass. Dangerous patients, I’d imagine. This looks like patient admissions,” he guessed. He could’ve sworn the exterior of the building matched with the blueprint of Administration. “Perhaps Administration is another building?”

“I thought it was this one…” Bond trailed off as he aimed his torch at the floor. Then he leaned down to pull something out of the dust.  “It looks like someone dumped out a file box.”

Q leaned over, aiming his torch at the page. It was handwritten in old, dramatically slanted script, the type Q always had trouble reading. “Does that say 1944?”

“No, 1924. It’s a patient death form.”

“Just lying there?” Q aimed his torch down, pausing as soon as he spotted another corner of paper sticking out from the dust. “Is that even legal?”

“Legal? Q, the patient’s been dead for almost a hundred years.” Bond stood up and let the paper fall. “‘Besides, this place has been abandoned since the seventies. I don’t think anyone cares."

Q grimaced. “I still have an irrational urge to come back here with a shredder. Work’s been a bad influence on me,” he said as he avoided stepping on another piece of half-buried paper. He started towards the reception desk, listening for any creaking underfoot.

Bond laughed. “In my experience, a bad influence is usually the best influence.”

Q laughed, unsurprised, and tried to aim his torch at a careful angle to keep from getting blinded again. The glass was clouded, muting the light; he could barely make out two overturned secretarial chairs and an old IBM Selectric typewriter. “My god, do you think it still works?” he asked, feeling a little tingle of excitement. “I used one of those in school.”

“I’m surprised you even know what that is,” Bond said, as he walked over to look through the window. “And no, I’m sure it doesn’t, so no need to test it out. Unless, of course, you’d like to drag this exploration out well into tomorrow.”

Q’s huff didn’t quite hide a little laugh. “Hardly. Though Mallory would have _fits_ if neither of us checked in —” He cut off, knowing exactly what Mallory would think, at least of Q.

“He’d have a fit if _you_ didn’t check in,” Bond pointed out. “With me, it’s just par for the course.”

“I managed to avoid him for an entire four-day conference on secure satellite technology,” Q said with a soft snicker. He played the light over the rest of the office, though the glass was too fogged for him to see the back wall. “In the first half-day, I found all the useful sources of information and spent the rest of the time _not_ attending lectures and reading whitepapers.”

“Only you would find enjoyment in —” Bond stopped abruptly and aimed his torch down one of the hallways.

“SpaceX,” Q said, smiling at the memory. He turned more slowly, wondering what had ever happened to the two reps he’d met. “They’d already hired the top researchers... What’s wrong?”

Bond moved in front of Q, blocking his view of the hallway. “You didn’t hear that?”

“Hear what? If it’s rats, don’t worry. I’ve been forced to become something of an expert,” Q said reassuringly.

“No, it sounded like...” Bond said quietly. Q lifted a hand to touch Bond’s shoulder but hesitated. He leaned over, but Bond let the torch drop to his side, and the hallway went black. “Rats. Yes, you’re probably right. This place has to be infested with them.”

“Don’t worry, 007. I’ve talked you safely through tunnels before. And this time, there’s no nearby train to run you down,” he teased. “Do you think we should see what’s upstairs? Or find the basement?”

Bond brought his torch up to shine down the hallway again before swinging it around to trail after Q’s up the stairs. “Let’s start from the top and work our way down. We can see if the actual structure needs to be condemned first.”

That thought cheered Q, though he hid his grin. If the building needed to be condemned, MI6 wouldn’t be able to take it over, no matter the state of the basements. Between the historical societies, building commissions, and the local council, the site would be mired in paperwork for years — far too long for Q Branch to be in a ‘temporary’ location.

Ignoring the crunch of papers underfoot, he headed for the stairs. “Brilliant plan.”

 

~~~

 

Even on a sunny day, the upstairs hallway would have been dreary. Now, with ice gathering on the windowsills and a chill seeping through cracks in the glass, Bond could feel the despair, as if it had amassed here over the centuries.

The windows overlooked the front of the property — a sea of snow and jagged, bare tree limbs stretching out into the distance, without a hint of roads or towns or any sign of civilisation. The property was isolated, and Bond had the same sense of loneliness and danger that came with going on a mission where the nearest backup was at a friendly military base in another country. They were only a couple hours outside of London, but the disconnection between here and the outside world made him feel trapped — as if there simply was no leaving, now that he and Q were here.

Opposite each window was a door, most of them open. The layout was unusual; Bond would have expected an interior hallway with rooms to either side. He glanced back in the direction of the staircase, wondering if the building was playing tricks with his sense of spatial awareness. The staircase had turned back on itself, but not enough to reach the front of the building — or so he’d thought.

Q went for the nearest door, but Bond quietly put out a hand to stop him. He held up his torch, playing it over the door. White paint flaked away from a corroded brass lock — a sliding bolt — fixed on the outside. It looked like it had been installed as an afterthought.

Warily, Bond reached out and pushed the door open enough to look inside. The room was small and windowless **,** like the type of dreary office he’d tried to avoid for years, right down to the avocado green paint, only instead of an industrial metal desk and chair, there were two sets of bunk beds crammed against the side walls. One thin mattress remained over the metal springs, its cover faded under the impression of a body. Midway down the wall, layers of paint were gouged — murky green, mustard yellow, and white — with jagged cuts all the way down to plaster.

Bond stepped into the room to get a closer look. The gouged plaster was rust-dark near the bottom. He’d seen that before. The sight brought him back to a time when freedom seemed hopeless and desperation caused once-sane men to scratch endlessly at the walls, digging until fingernails shattered and bled.

“Blood,” he said. “I saw this sort of thing when I was imprisoned in North Korea.”

“Blood? From —”

The door slammed shut with the force of a gunshot so hard, Bond felt the push of moving air against the back of his neck. He had his gun drawn and aimed at the door in a heartbeat. “Q!” he shouted through the door. “Q, are you all right?”

“I’m fine!” Q called back, his voice muffled. The door rattled hard but didn’t open. “It’s stuck!”

Relieved, Bond holstered his gun and rushed to the door. He tried turning the handle, but it wouldn’t budge from his side, either. As he went to make a second attempt, a gust of wind at his back shoved him into the door. “Shit,” he grunted.

“Bond? Bond, are _you_ all right?”

“Yeah, I’m all right,” he responded with a touch of chagrin. “The wind caught me off guard, and I tripped. Slammed into the door.”

“What wind?” Q asked, sounding baffled. “Is there a ventilation shaft in there? The door might be stuck from air pressure.”

Bond traced his torch along the ceiling and walls, looking for air ducts. “I don’t see any,” he said more quietly.

And there weren’t any. No ducts. No windows. Not even a crack. The air was utterly still, closing in on him with a heavy, damp chill reminiscent of a prison cell. The wind couldn’t have come from inside. The ‘wind’ shouldn’t have happened at all. He must have tripped — only he knew he hadn’t. He’d felt the push high up on his back, between his shoulderblades, hard enough to throw him into the door with bruising force.

He turned back and pressed his hand against the door. “Q, can you open the door? Try again.”

This time, the door’s rattle was faint, barely a tremor under Bond’s hand. “It’s stuck,” Q shouted, and again his voice was muffled and soft. “Maybe it’s the damp.”

“Of _course_ , it is,” Bond muttered to himself. “Bloody fucking old buildings.” He swung around again, searching for whatever had pushed him, but all he found was the dark, desolate room. Warily, he took a step back from the door. “Q, I can’t open the door from the inside. You’re going to need to do it.”

The door rocked against the hinges; the knob twitched but didn’t turn. Unhelpfully, Q said, “It’s still stuck.”

Bond huffed. “Kick it then.”

“All right,” Q answered uncertainly. “Stand back.”

Bond crossed to the back of the room, though he hesitated a step from the wall. He glanced at the old, dried blood, dark against exposed plaster, and his skin crawled at the thought of touching the walls, even through his jacket.

A heartbeat later, the door shuddered hard. It burst open, filling the room with blinding light. Bond flinched away, holding his breath against the dust that fell from the rotting ceiling and clouded the air. He heard the door hit the wall with a loud _bang_ , making him flinch again. He blinked his eyes open cautiously and saw a shape in the doorway, steel grey light bleeding around a menacing silhouette too tall, too broad to be Q.

Bond snapped the torchlight up, and Q raised a bare hand to shade his eyes. The outer shell of his shapeless, oversized parka whispered loudly in the silence. “All right, then?” he asked, lowering his hand as Bond lowered the torch.

“You did that in one go?” Bond asked, disbelieving. “That’s… impressive.”

Q grinned a little breathlessly, hazel eyes alight. “That’s what happens when you spend six weeks running network cables through tunnels more than a century old. I got tired of waiting for Security to bring that... thing they use to knock in doors.” He leaned down to pick up his own torch, which he’d set on the floor beside the door.

Bond smiled, even if it was tight. He wanted the fuck out of this room. Truthfully, he wanted the fuck out of this entire complex. Even with the little bit of time they’d spent here, he was beginning to hate the idea of _this_ being Q Branch.

He walked towards the doorway, eyeing the damage to the door. “It paid off,” he observed.

“You don’t have to look so surprised. I think it must’ve just stuck from the paint and the damp,” Q said, stepping into the doorway to examine the jamb. He lifted a hand but apparently thought twice about touching the ragged paint and splintered wood.

Relieved to be free of the room, Bond followed Q back into the hall. “Let’s not take our chances, shall we?”

Q shot him a sly smile. “It’s even easier with the hinges on the inside. Just take a hammer and punch, and knock the pins out.”

“And of course you have both of those on you, right?” Bond remarked, looking evenly at Q. He almost felt guilty for how quickly Q’s smile evaporated.

“Well, no,” Q said, glancing away to look out the cloudy, cracked windows. “I could probably improvise something.”

Bond chuckled as the tension and uncertainty of being locked in that room started to melt away now that he was clear of the door. He smiled good-naturedly at Q. “Don’t worry about it. Next hallway?” he suggested.

Q glanced back at the offending room but kept walking. He didn’t protest Bond’s suggestion to skip the rest of the rooms, which was odd. They were supposed to be doing a full site survey, after all. Just how committed was Q to the idea of moving Q Branch here?

“Is there an active ventilation system?” Q asked. “If there’s an outside feed that’s catching the wind, it could present breathing problems. We might want dust masks.”

“There were no vents.”

“But you said there was wind.”

“There was.”

Q stopped and turned, looking back at the room. “From where? You checked for floor vents? You said something about tripping?”

“Yes, I tripped, but I —” Bond stopped before he could say that he’d been pushed. Even the fresh perspective of being out of that bloody room didn’t change the fact that _something_ had caught him from behind and shoved him into that door.

He looked back in the direction of the room, now just an innocuous hole in the wall several doors down. Frustrated, he turned to Q. “Look, I don’t know. The door slammed shut and locked, and while I was in there, what I had thought was wind knocked me into the door. _Fuck_.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked away.

Q deliberately kicked at the floor, stirring up dust. “It could’ve been anything,” he said soothingly. “Uneven floorboards. Something concealed in the dust. At least we got you out, right?”

“Right,” Bond conceded. Even if he told Q that he was sure whatever caught him had come directly from behind, he knew Q would just try and find new ways to Scully him. So really, there was no point. “Let’s keep going. We have a lot of ground to cover and I want to be done well before nightfall.”

 

~~~

 

Under any other circumstance — say, a warm spring day, accompanied by a few more people, possibly with emergency medical technicians on standby — Q would’ve been delighted to explore every inch of Cedarbridge. Now, though, the broken windows directed the snow to blow in at just the right angle to slip up under his jacket, and the damp had settled into his jeans, chilling his legs. Of course, the place probably smelled horrid in the heat, given all the mould and decaying plaster. Just thinking about it turned his stomach, and as he and Bond reached the end of the hallway, he paused to dig through his rucksack, hoping he’d remembered to pack gum or mints.

“I don’t think we need to examine every room of every building, do you?” Q asked.

“No, this is just an initial assessment. That will only be necessary if you decide to pick this place.” Bond snorted as he looked back down the corridor in distaste.

Q nodded, turning to follow Bond’s gaze, but lines of rust red caught his eye. He blinked and sidestepped so he could see past Bond, through the doorway at the end of the hall. It took a moment for his eyes to focus, distinguishing rusting chain link from red brick with mouldy black mortar. Another step let him see that it was an emergency stairway with fencing above the centre handrails, presumably meant to keep anyone from falling.

“That looks distinctly... unsafe,” he said. He felt damp wool under his bare fingers and only then realised he’d put a hand on Bond’s sleeve to draw him back away from the foreboding stairwell.

Bond laughed quietly. “Now who’s being protective?” He reached up and gave Q’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “But you’re right. Let’s avoid testing those stairs, shall we?”

“We can backtrack,” Q said, turning to look back down the hallway towards the central staircase. It seemed long — far too long — and the glare of faint sunlight on clouds and snow seemed to obscure their tracks through the plaster dust.

He took one step before the hallway stretched and swayed before him. The splintered door slid away in the distance. The broad foyer staircase disappeared altogether; they’d have to venture into the rusting, crumbling stairwell to escape.

He ventured another glance ahead and saw the hallway was just that: a hallway, dusty and filthy and falling apart. He was being irrational, that was all. He pulled off his glasses to rub at his eyes. Dust coated the lenses, mucking up his vision, which didn’t help.

He looked back down at the dust swirling around their boots. Dizzy, he clutched Bond’s sleeve for balance and took a breath, but instead of cool, clean, snowy air, all he could taste was decay and rot. What had their footsteps stirred into the air? Asbestos? Mould spores? Medical would have a field day with that.

“Are you all right?” Bond asked as his hand fell on Q’s shoulder.

“I’m fine. Dirty lenses,” he said, before his sense of spatial awareness flashed a warning in his mind. Bond was to his left and ahead, with Q’s left hand still on Bond’s right arm. But the touch on his right shoulder was from _behind_ —

Startled, he threw himself forward and twisted around. He hit Bond full-force, and his glasses went flying from his grasp. One foot landed atop Bond’s, skidding on the reinforced toe of his boot. Q nearly went to his knees, if not for Bond’s quick reflexes as he dropped his torch to catch Q in his arms.

“Q? What the fuck?” Bond pulled him back until he was flush against Bond’s chest. “Christ, what the hell just happened?”

Refusing to entertain the notion that _someone_ had touched him, he let out a nervous little laugh and shook his head. “Sorry. I just — All these broken windows. I keep getting cold air through my coat. Hopefully the basement will be warmer,” he said, telling himself to pull away from Bond, turn around, and walk down the hallway like a normal human. And he would. Any moment now, he’d do just that.

Bond grip on Q’s arms tightened as he quietly asked, “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Certain, thank you, 007,” he said, taking a reluctant step away while looking deliberately down — _not_ at the hazardous staircase — to find his glasses.

“What happened?” Bond asked, giving Q an assessing look.

He wasn’t going to allow _himself_ to think of that touch on his shoulder, much less mentioning it to Bond. He spotted his glasses near the stairwell door and hesitated. “A touch of vertigo,” he finally admitted, gesturing down the long, dusty hallway. “I’m not usually prone to it, except in IMAX theatres. I had dust on my lenses, and it caught the light wrong.” Q smiled wryly. “Significantly more dust, now. I’m not certain I have enough lens wipes for this. So don’t expect me to drive home,” he warned, trying to make light of the whole situation.

“Not a problem.” Bond reached down and picked something up off the floor. Holding it out, he said, “Here. You dropped this.”

Q blinked dust from his eyes and took his torch. Hadn’t he pocketed it when he’d taken off his glasses? He couldn’t remember, which was disturbing. “Thank you. We’re probably breathing in — I don’t know — hallucinogenic mould spores, or those illegal mushrooms,” he said, mustering up the courage to fetch his glasses, now that he had a torch in hand. “It’s been ten years since I’ve gone to a bloody rave for a reason, you know.”

“You, at a rave? I can’t picture it,” Bond said absently, still focused on searching the floor. “Do you see my torch?”

“Oh, piss off,” Q said, struggling not to laugh. He picked up his glasses but didn’t put them on yet — there was no point in it. “I wasn’t always the stand-up citizen you see before you. There are juvenile records you’ll never find. Of course, it helps that working for MI6 means I can legally make them disappear, so...” He trailed off with a wry smile. He aimed his own torch into the stairwell doorway, spotting Bond’s in a dark corner. “There’s your torch.”

“Where?” Bond asked, even though he was looking right at it.

“There, just inside the stairwell.” Q hesitated. His torch was shining directly on it. There was no way Bond couldn’t see it.

He took one step closer, but couldn’t bring himself to keep going. The rusty fencing did nothing to inspire confidence in the stairwell’s structural integrity.

He took in a breath, and the cloying taste slipped over his tongue again. Desperate to buy himself time, he asked casually, “Why so surprised? You can’t tell me you’ve never been to a rave. I’ve seen your arrest records — international and domestic.”

“You don’t seem the type.” Bond moved beside Q, staring right at the torch on the floor. “And I don’t see my torch.”

Q huffed and put his absurdly dusty glasses on his head just to free his hand. “It’s right there.”

“Right _where_?”

Bond was looking right at it, tucked into the corner. How could he not see it? “Do _you_ need glasses?” Q snapped, exasperated. He sidestepped Bond to get onto the landing, reaching for the torch —

His second step landed on _something_ , and his foot went out from under him.  Light flashed ahead as Bond’s torch rolled out from under Q’s foot and bounced loudly down the stairs. The stairwell spun in a blur of rusty chain link. The downwards stairs seemed to rear up, coming right at him.

“Q!” Bond yelled. Q felt an arm wrap around his midsection — God, he _hoped_ it was Bond’s — and he fell back. Bond held Q close and twisted to cushion his fall, and they hit the floor in a cloud of dust and rot.

Q shivered and gripped Bond’s arms tightly. “Found your torch.”


	3. Chapter 3

The lobby was no more attractive on their second visit. Even with the half-open front door, the air was still and musty. For a spacious room, it was also too dark, too closed; Bond could easily imagine this place as the prison it must have once been for its patients.

At the foot of the central staircase, Bond glanced down the dark, unwelcoming hallways to either side, hoping irrationally that Q wouldn’t want to investigate either one. He kept walking towards the doors, though he stopped at the fallen death notice. He’d made light of finding it earlier, but it _was_ odd. It should have been filed with the General Register Office.

The site hadn’t been properly sterilised. The paperwork should’ve been gathered and at least archived. And the buildings should have been locked, if not condemned and torn down. It was as if the staff had just left their posts without another look back. But _why_?

“Did you want to keep searching this building?” Bond asked, though he hated the idea.

Q shook his head. “We’ve only seen one hallway of one floor, but I think that was quite enough, wouldn’t you agree?”

Hiding his relief, Bond nodded. “More than enough.” He looked to where snow was blowing in through the open front doors. “Next building, or can we assume they’re all in this shape?”

Q sighed. “To be honest, they are most likely all like this. That said, we really need first-hand knowledge of that before reporting that the site’s a complete waste —” He stopped, his eyes going fractionally wider before he turned away, hiding his expression.

It was on the tip of Bond’s tongue to ask why they’d bother continuing their exploration if Q had already made up his mind about the site. Honestly, Bond had a dozen arguments to counter any reasons Q could possibly have for moving here. The distance alone made Cedarbridge a poor choice at best.

But Q had probably thought of that. He hadn’t said a thing on the long drive to the site. There had to be something else.

Resolving to pay closer attention, Bond went to look out the door. “I didn’t find a site map, either in your files or on the internet. Any guess... _Damn_ ,” he said softly as he looked out not at trees but a thick wall of fog and blowing snow. This was the sort of weather that got people killed just metres from their own doorsteps — in Siberia or Alaska or anywhere but England. What the _hell_ was going on with the weather?

“What is it?” Bond heard Q walk up behind him. He looked past Bond and let out an exasperated huff. “When the hell did _that_ start?”

“I —” Bond began before he shook his head in frustration. He _had_ been paying attention upstairs; he’d been treating this whole excursion like reconnaissance of an enemy site, not a harmless bit of local exploration. Upstairs, he’d looked out the bloody windows. “I have no idea.”

Q ran a hand through his long, dusty hair before he stopped, confusion setting in. He patted his head as though searching before he turned to glance back up the staircase. “Fuck,” he whispered.

Bond frowned at Q before realising what was missing. “Your glasses?”

Q turned back to Bond, visibly whiter than he’d been before — if that was even possible. “I’d put them on my head when we were trying to find your torch. They must have gone flying when I fell.” He glanced back to the stairs again before facing Bond, swallowing hard. “Do I go after them?”

“No,” Bond said at once, responding instinctively to the fear in Q’s voice. Then he looked at Q, surprised, because Q wasn’t the type to get rattled. Then again, Q had no field experience. “I’ll get them,” he offered, though reluctantly. He didn’t want to leave Q alone.

And, if he were to be honest with himself, he didn’t want to go back upstairs, with or without Q.

Q grabbed Bond’s arm. Hard. “No. Just leave them.” He laughed a bit desperately. “Between the dirt and, well, wherever they went flying, they’re most likely damaged at this point. I have a spare pair at home, it’s fine. Besides, you shouldn’t go up there alone, not when you don’t know where they actually are. No. Really, it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

As soon as Q took a breath, Bond cut in, saying, “All right. I’ll stay.” Then, remembering Q’s anger in the woods, he added, “We only have one torch between us. Best to stick together.”

Q nodded. “Yes, that’s probably best.” He tightened his hold on Bond until he was practically clinging to him.

Any other time, Bond would have welcomed the contact without thinking anything as innocent as reassurance; now, he just nodded and asked, “Next building, then?”

“No reason to check the basement here. Not if it’s anything like _up there_...” Q trailed off, still looking at the stairs. “Yes, let’s go. Hopefully the next one won’t be quite so decrepit.”

Careful not to dislodge Q’s hold, Bond started towards the doors. “What we saw upstairs is enough to get this whole damn building condemned. You might want to note that on your report,” he added smoothly, watching Q’s reaction out of the corner of his eye. He felt guilty about taking advantage of Q’s disquiet, but fishing for information was second nature to him.

“Burn it down. Start over. And to hell with all the historical societies,” Q said with a nervous laugh. “Think Gareth would approve that for an official report?”

“Gareth?” He’d had his suspicions about Q and Mallory, but he hadn’t been able to find any concrete information about their relationship. Was it just professional or also personal?

“Mallory. I’ve known him for years. Used to do cybersecurity work for him before he recommended me to M.”

There was more to the story than that, but now was neither the time nor place to push. “The fog shouldn’t hold for long,” he said, not mentioning that it was hours after when fog normally would have formed.

Q took a deep breath as though steeling himself and stepped out, reaching for the handrail. His hand barely made contact before he jerked back as if he’d been shocked again, but that should have been impossible with this much condensation in the air. Without pausing, Q shoved his hand into his pocket and continued down, looking to the right.

“The trees were thinner this way, I think,” he said, looking back at Bond. As Q continued walking, he took his hand from his pocket again and reached back, offering Bond his torch. “Here. You’ll probably get twitchy without one,” he said with a faint smile.

“You know me too well,” Bond said wryly, taking the torch.

Cautiously, Q headed into the trees. The ground was obscured by patches of snow and years’ worth of fallen leaves. If there was a path, it was long-buried. The mouldy stench of decay was thick even here, where wind and fresh air should have carried it away.

Q stopped so abruptly that Bond nearly ran into him. “What —”

“I think this is the right way — and the wrong way,” Q said with grim humour, inching to the side. His footsteps squelched loudly, and Bond looked down to see Q standing in an inch of muck.

Beyond was a tree-choked mire that might have once been a pond. The remnants of a bridge rose up from the ground a few yards to the side, its splintered, rotting length disappearing into the fog. A grotesquely cheerful sign leaned drunkenly against the railing. Embossed words, once painted a bright yellow against the green background, read: _The bridge to recovery can only lead forward_. _There shall be no peace behind._

No peace ahead either, Bond suspected. He couldn’t see the end of the bridge, but he doubted it reached all the way to the far shore. Suppressing a shiver, he rested a hand on Q’s shoulder and quietly warned, “Careful.”

Q looked at Bond in disbelief. “We’re not _crossing_ the pond, are we?”

“No.” Bond tightened his grip. “We can go around the perimeter. Keep an eye out for buildings.”

“Good,” Q huffed. “For a moment, I thought you were going to suggest we either traverse that deathtrap” — he pointed at the bridge — “or try and push our way through the muck.” He adjusted his rucksack, pulling the straps tight to secure it against his back. He waved in the general direction of the trees. “Lead on, then.”

Bond stepped around Q, careful to stay on his left, closer to the water. He didn’t bother with the torch; better for their eyes to get used to the hazy fog, especially with only one torch between them. The lapping water was loud in the quiet, snowy fog. He wanted to warn Q to watch for rotted boards or ice patches, but he kept his mouth shut and moved slowly, treating this like a mission — like a hunt. His hand itched to draw his gun, but the only targets here would be wildlife, which they were yet to see, and any trespassers foolish enough to enter the property.

“You didn’t see any graffiti back there, did you?” he asked over his shoulder, voice almost at a whisper.

“No, now that I think about it,” Q responded, just as quietly. “Why?”

“Just curious,” Bond said, hiding his concern. Any unguarded space in London immediately attracted intruders. Gangs, teenagers, drug users... Hell, Bond hadn’t seen animal nests or even spiderwebs here.

He kept watch on the trees, looking for buildings, but the water kept drawing his gaze. He couldn’t tell if it had been a river or pond or even just a marsh; now it was simply dark, threatening pools and submerged stands of thin, dying trees that vanished and appeared in the fog. If the hospital administrators had abandoned critical records, what might they have hidden under the water’s icy surface?

It wasn’t his job to find out. There wasn’t a damn thing M himself could offer to coax him into the water here. His hand tightened around the grip of his gun. He’d shot his way through ice before.

“007?” Q’s neutral voice came from behind, breaking the silence. “What are you doing?”

 _From behind_. Not an earpiece.

Bond dragged his eyes away from the pond and stared down. He was ankle-deep in ice water, boots soaking through, jeans splashed with icy spots up to his knees. What the _fuck_?

He backed up without looking, almost skidding in the mud, and quickly holstered his Walther. “I thought I saw something,” he lied.

No. It couldn’t be a lie. It was the only explanation. He’d seen something and reacted instinctively. The cold had him distracted. That was _all_ it could be.

“What did you see?”

Bond took a deep breath that sent ice into his lungs. He’d almost drowned at Skyfall, and then he’d been laid up for three weeks with bronchitis and dire warnings about pneumonia. He turned to face Q, though having his back to the water sent a chill crawling up his spine. “Just a shadow. Nothing to worry about.”

“A _shadow?_ ” Q asked incredulously. He was staring at Bond as though he’d lost his mind. “You aren’t the type to draw your gun because of a _shadow_ , 007.”

“And you’ve been in the field how many times?” Bond snapped. He refused to look at Q and refused to look back at the water. He started walking again, heading deliberately into the trees. “I’m responsible for your safety. I’m not taking any bloody chances. I’m not losing another —”

Too late, he snapped his mouth shut. M’s death was still fresh in his mind. He wasn’t losing another damned executive. At least M had been a soldier, in her own way. Q was a civilian.

"Bond, you're not..." Q reached out as though to touch Bond, but let his hand drop with a frustrated sigh. "This isn't the field; it's simply a number of exceptionally old buildings. I think we're letting that fact get to us. Let's just keep going so we can get back to London as quickly as possible."

Bond was tempted to argue, but there was no point in making the day any more difficult than it already was. He couldn’t resist one last look back at the pond. Then he turned away and started through the woods. Q was right: The sooner they got through the site survey, the sooner they’d be back in London.

 

~~~

 

Q walked beside Bond in uncomfortable silence. No part of the day had gone as he had planned, and it appeared to have them both on edge. Bond’s behaviour at the pond had been both irritating and worrisome. He had never known Bond to draw his gun when it wasn’t warranted. Bond just wasn’t the sort of man to be reckless; there was always a reason for the things that he did.  So what had made him go for his gun back there?

As they walked through the trees, they hugged the edge of the forest, keeping what little they could see of the grounds in sight. Bond stayed a couple steps ahead and to the outside, presumable to shield Q from whatever had caught his attention back at the pond.

The fog didn’t dissipate; in fact, it seemed to be thickening, even in the trees. It blurred Q’s sight of Bond, even just a couple feet away. He reached out to brush his hand against Bond’s arm, comforted by his solid presence. When Bond paused and looked back, Q shook his head and gestured for him to keep walking.

They’d been walking for too long. Keeping one hand on Bond’s arm, Q glanced back to see how far they’d come, but the pool of water was gone. They should have reached a building or a path or even the property’s edge by now. But what if the property didn’t have an intact wall? The gate had been set into a wall, but whole sections of it could’ve crumbled. How far could they end up walking if they’d crossed from Cedarbridge into open forest? Reluctantly, Q pulled his hand back and shoved it in his pocket, suddenly conscious that he didn’t have gloves.

Bond came to a sudden halt. Before Q could tell him to keep walking, Bond said, “To the right,” and started walking faster, angling away from the rough path he’d been cutting through the dead trees.

Just a few steps away was a brick wall rearing up out of the fog, with a filthy windowsill, once white, at eye-level. The window was filled with cinderblocks poorly mortared into place, crumbling to give glimpses of darkness within.

Q walked up to run his hand along the bricks inlaid in one of the windows. “My god, this looks like a prison,” he said quietly. He wondered if it had been some sort of detention centre, or possibly where they kept the most degenerate patients. He turned to glance at Bond. “What do you think it was used for?”

“Criminal ward. Violent patients,” Bond said quietly, looking to either side. “We’ll try to find a door. Stay with me,” he added, looking at Q as though ready for an argument.

“But wouldn’t it be better if we —” Q stopped, knowing it was no use. There was no way Bond would allow them to wind around the building in separate directions. He sighed and said, “All right.”

Bond’s smirk was a bit grim. “You can explore to your heart’s content down in your tunnels. Here, you don’t leave my side,” he said as he started walking to the left, staying between the building and the trees whenever he could.

For a heartbeat, Q paused, staring at the back of Bond’s head. Did he know Q planned to reject this property outright, if possible? If so, why not just say something so that they could go home?

Not wanting to say anything in case he was wrong, Q picked up the pace until he fell into step behind Bond. “That goes both ways, you understand.”

Bond looked back, meeting his eyes, and extended a hand. “Watch your footing. Some of those bricks may have fallen out from the upper storeys,” he warned, tipping his head back to look up into the fog. Q couldn’t even see the top of the ground floor windows, much less anything above.

After they’d passed two more blocked windows, heavy growth forced them away from the building. Q pulled back out of reach of long, vicious thorns, only then thinking to worry about nettles and hogweed. Were they active year-round or only in the growing season?

He passed safely around the bush and stopped beside Bond. The overgrowth had concealed what looked like a fire exit or service entrance for the building. Three crumbling concrete steps with a rusting pipe handrail led to a landing with two fire doors. An old chain had been run through the handles and locked tightly with a padlock. The doors were warped as if they’d been struck from inside by sledgehammers, and a corner of Q’s mind calculated the force necessary to crumple fire doors like paper.

“That’s always a good sign,” Bond muttered, staring at the doors.

“Do you think there was a riot? It would explain the doors.”

Bond released Q’s hand and opened his jacket enough to get at the inside pocket. “Stay back,” he said, taking his hand back out. Q flinched, expecting Bond to draw his gun again. If it wasn’t for the way he tucked his fingers, Q would have thought he wasn’t holding anything at all. As he narrowed his eyes, straining to see without his glasses, Bond went up the steps and picked up the lock.

Seconds later, Q heard the chain rattle. He made it one step up before the doors slammed open with a deafening clang as they hit the pipe railing.

Bond recoiled, bringing up one arm defensively as Q backpedalled three steps into a dry tree branch hard enough to leave a fist-sized bruise between his shoulderblades. Twigs cracked free, and snow showered down over him, sending icy fingers slithering into his parka and under his jumper.

Bond swore viciously, body turned sideways to the dark, open doorway. His right arm was held awkwardly; in his left hand, he held the chain, raised like a weapon.

Q pushed off the tree and ran to Bond, anxious at the thought that he may have broken his arm. “Bond!” he exclaimed. “Are you all right? What the bloody hell was that?”

Slowly, Bond lowered the chain and let it fall. Without turning away from the darkness, he lifted his right arm and flexed his hand. “The chain hit when it came free.” He took a deep breath. “The doors —”

He cut off as wind shifted, bringing with it the sharp smell of smoke and burning meat.

The world spun as Q turned with his hand over his mouth, trying to keep down what little breakfast he’d had that morning. He took in a shallow breath, only to have the rancid smell slip through the cracks in his fingers.

He fell to his knees as bile begin to rise up in his throat, and he struggled to contain the urge to vomit. He was _not_ going to throw up in front of Bond.

“Q. Move,” Bond urged, wrapping his left arm around Q’s waist. He half-dragged, half-carried Q down the steps and away, into the relatively fresher air in the trees.

The second they reached a safe distance, Q grabbed his knees and dragged in a lungful of clean air, grateful to be away from the building. “What the fuck was that?” he spat out between breaths.

Without releasing Q, Bond looked back over his shoulder towards the building. “Are you all right? Are you dizzy?”

“I’m fine,” Q snapped, standing up straight. He pushed against Bond, and Bond released him abruptly, taking a step back. “And that’s not answering my question. What. The fuck. _Was that?_ ”

Bond stared at him, eyes cold. “Stay here,” he ordered before turning back to head for the stairs.

Q reached out and grabbed the sleeve of Bond’s coat in an attempt to stop him. “No,” he forced out. He took another deep breath. “We don’t separate, remember?”

Bond pulled free of Q’s grasp. “Do you want me to hold your bloody hand, or do you want to know _what the fuck_ that was, Quartermaster?”

“First you tell me ‘you don’t leave my side’,” Q ground out, emphasising the quotes. “Then you treat me like a child? Make up your mind, Bond!”

A ghost of a smirk touched Bond’s lips. “My pleasure.” He locked his hand around Q’s wrist and started walking for the doors.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Q had no desire to breathe through his nose, he would have willingly sewn his lips together; anything to keep from shooting his mouth off at Bond. He had said ‘no separation’, and as Bond dragged him back towards the building, Q knew that was _exactly_ what Bond intended.

Even though Q was braced for it, the stench was overwhelming. He made it as far as the top step before a little cough escaped. Bond, damn him, showed no sign of being affected; he’d even put aside the injury to his arm and held the torch steadily, light aimed into the darkness — not that it helped.

The doors opened onto a stairwell landing. On the left side, stairs disappeared down into the basement; on the right, they went up. Bond slowed at the threshold, torch aimed down at a floor that was too black for dirt alone.

“Fire,” Bond said, his voice just as steady as his hand. “That’s what you smell, Quartermaster. The patients.”

“Wait, did they —” Q came to a sudden stop, feeling the tug on his wrist when Bond didn’t let go. He glanced at the doors. “The staff locked the patients in here while the building burned, didn’t they?”

“They must have done.” Bond turned, shining his torch at the inside of the door. The heavy metal was pocked from impacts. “If the other doors are also locked, that means they didn’t come back for the bodies.”

Q swallowed down bile that had nothing to do with the smell. “While every fibre of my being is telling me not to go in there” — he nodded towards the interior — “if there are _bodies_ in there, we have to make a note of that.”

“If you’re going to be sick, do it quietly,” Bond advised, releasing Q’s wrist before he started down towards the basement. “Hearing the echo will just get you sick all over again.”

“Sod off, Bond,” Q muttered even as he made a mental note of it. If he couldn’t handle death, he had no business being the Quartermaster for MI6. Absently, he reached out to grab the handrail only to flinch back at the thought of touching any more metal. He’d already been shocked twice today. He wasn’t taking any chances. He touched the back of Bond’s jacket instead, telling himself he needed the contact to keep his footing. He tightened his grip when Bond stopped.

Reluctantly, he looked down the stairs past Bond, who was aiming the torchlight at a twist of blackened metal. Q lost his grip when Bond leaned over and picked up what looked like the metal leg of a patient cot.

“Violent patients wouldn’t have furniture they could easily take apart,” Bond said, lifting the torch to examine the makeshift weapon more closely.

“It appears as though they ripped the furniture apart themselves, most likely in their attempt to get out. It almost makes one wonder...” He trailed off as he looked around. He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, but he was beginning to wonder whether the patients were locked in despite the fact that the building was on fire... or because of it.

Bond threw aside the metal bar; it landed somewhere below with a loud crash and rattle as it hit something else, something that clanged into more metal, adding to the din until the sounds coming up the concrete stairwell were nearly deafening. The noise went on for far too long — more so than just a simple echo, no matter how many things that bar had slammed into. Q thought about what else was down there. He just wasn’t sure exactly how keen he was to find out.

Only when the silence returned did Bond start moving again. The stairs ended on a fire-blackened landing where a heavy metal door had been warped from its hinges. The bottom bolts were torn free, and the corner of the door was folded up like crumpled paper. The metal edge gleamed sharply in the torchlight.

“Hold this,” Bond said, extending the torch back to Q.

He reached out and took it, resolutely ignoring the slight tremor he saw in his hand as he did. He prayed at least Bond hadn’t noticed. “What are you doing?” he quietly asked.

“Opening this.” As he took hold of the edge of the door, he met Q’s eyes and added, “You wanted to see if there were bodies.” Then he started to pull, straining against the warped hinges.

Q nodded and took a step back as best he could to cast more light on the door. With a grunt of effort, Bond moved the door two more inches before the hinge squealed in protest.

Bond took a ragged breath and said, “That’s all. Can you look through?”

Q walked over to shine the torch into the opening in the door. He tried to get the light in at eye level, but the most he could see was a vast expanse of nothingness. He squatted down to look through the bottom, where the door was practically folded back, but the view wasn’t much better from the ground. The opening appeared big enough for him to squeeze through. If he could get inside, he’d be able to get a better look around. Besides, he told himself, exploring this alone would give him a chance to prove that he was good for more than just sitting behind a computer all day. He could be useful in the field.

He took a steadying breath and pulled off his rucksack. He leaned it against the wall and set the torch down by his heel. He got down onto his stomach and inched his way into the tight space, wary of snagging his coat on the shredded metal.

He stood and smiled to himself, brushing the dust and god-knows-what-else off before he crouched back down to grab the torch. Just as he was about to reach through the opening, the door slammed shut with a screeching bang. He recoiled and fell backwards, smacking his head on the concrete floor.

For a moment, his entire vision whited out as pain seared against the back of his skull. “What the bloody fuck?” he muttered as he tried to sit up. He gingerly ran his hand over his head, but thankfully he felt no blood.

He looked around the pitch-black room, hoping there was enough light for his eyes to adjust, but nothing came. Tentatively, he turned over until he was on all fours and crawled his way towards what he hoped was the door. He had expected to at least see through where the corner had been peeled back, but all he saw in any direction was black.

He swore viciously as his head bumped into something solid. He ran his hand up the surface until he found a handle. _The door_. He moved his way back down, searching for the open corner, but all he felt was warm, smooth metal.

_Warm._

He was in the basement of an unheated abandoned building in a snowstorm. How could the door _possibly_ be warm?

“Bond? Are you out there?” He coughed, heart racing as a spike of adrenaline hit his system. “Bond!”

He coughed again; the noise was too loud in the echoing, empty space. There was no response from Bond, and panic effectively silenced Q’s next cough. This wasn’t possible. There should have been an opening at the bottom of the door and Bond _should_ be able to hear him.

Unless Bond wasn’t there.

Q’s next cough was shallow and rattled. He tried to take a breath, only to start wheezing. The acrid taste of smoke hit full force as his eyes began to water. The air around him steadily grew warmer. Hotter. His emergency response training kicked in, and he dropped all the way to the floor in search of fresh air, but he only tasted more smoke.

_Where the fuck was Bond?_

He reached up to bang on the door, only to yank his hand back when bare skin touched hot metal. A flicker caught his eye. Firelight danced across the floor.

The building was on fire again? How was that even possible?

“ _Bond!_ ” he shouted as best he could. “Get me the fuck out of here!”

Distantly he heard screaming. He curled up on the floor and tried to keep the panic from overtaking him. He didn’t want to die here, like one of the patients locked inside. The screaming became louder, until it sounded like a symphony of metal against metal.

_“Q!”_

_Bond_.

“Q, get out! I can’t hold it!”

Blindly, Q crawled towards the shout. He shuffled two feet across the floor. Three feet. Then wonderfully cold air hit, and he dragged in a breath, throwing himself forward. Something scraped at his back. Fabric tugged at his shoulders. He pulled harder, wanting only to escape, and with a loud ripping sound, the fabric gave way.

With another _clang_ , the door slammed shut again, this time behind him. Strong arms went around him. Bond pulled him to sit up, and he leaned against Bond’s body, coughing, trying not to shake with the adrenaline rush.

“Breathe, Q. You’re all right,” Bond said calmly, rubbing a hand over Q’s back.

Q flinched when Bond’s hand ran over the bruise from the tree. He tried to stand up, but slipped against Bond’s hold. “Bond, we have to get out of here,” he muttered, an hysterical edge to his voice. “The building caught fire again!”

“Q —” Bond pulled him close, holding him down. “Q, there’s no fire. We’re safe.”

“No, Bond, you don’t understand.” Q gripped the lapel of Bond’s coat. “Back in there” — he pointed at the door — “I could smell smoke. And I could see it. I could see the fire. And the door was too hot to touch. And you weren’t there. _Where were you?_ ”

“There’s _no heat_ , Q. No fire. I was opening the bloody door,” Bond said more sharply. “What in hell were you thinking, going in there?”

Q reached out a hand towards the door. “No, but the door —” He stopped when nothing but cool metal touched his fingertips. He shrank back against Bond and ran his hands together, searching for a burn from where he’d banged against the door. But his hand was fine. It didn’t even tingle. “The room was on fire, Bond...” he whispered.

Bond’s exhale was short. “All right. We’re leaving,” he said, shifting his hold on Q. He got to his feet, pulling Q up with him. “Can I let go? I need to find the torch.”

“Yes, I think so.” Q released Bond. He was relieved when his legs didn’t give out from under him. “There’s really no fire?”

“There’s no fire,” Bond repeated curtly. Q heard the rustle of cloth, followed by a soft click. Bright white electric light flickered and jumped as Bond hit the torch. The light turned steady, illuminating fire-black cinderblock walls.

The light shifted as Bond turned the torch on the door. Q’s eyes immediately went to the bottom corner, expecting there to be smoke billowing out. All he saw, though, was the same innocuous opening from earlier. “There’s no fire,” he repeated, feeling completely unnerved. Short of hearing a roaring blaze, every one of his senses told him that room had been on fire. Had he really imagined the whole thing?

“I think you’re right,” he said. “I think we need to get out of here.”

Bond nodded and turned for the stairs. He switched the torch to his left hand and reached for Q, and then said, “Here,” offering Q the torch instead.

Q wrapped his fingers around the handle, feeling slightly better with the light in his hands. “Thank you.”

Bond nodded and took a lighter from his outside pocket. When he flicked it on, the light it cast was familiar. That must have been what Q had seen, except there had been _no opening_ from inside the room. What the hell was wrong with this place?

Q picked up his rucksack from where it rested against the wall. Shrugging it over his jacket, he turned to meet Bond’s eyes. “I don’t think this place is hospitable for Q Branch, Bond,” he said, his tone neutral. “Any of it.”

Bond nodded, gently taking hold of Q’s arm with his free hand. “Agreed,” he said, and started up the stairs.


	4. Chapter 4

Q stumbled out of the building, barely keeping up as Bond practically dragged him along. At the foot of the steps, Bond stopped so abruptly that Q bumped into him and slipped on the snowy, cracking cement.

“What is it?” he asked as he regained his footing.

“The snow’s picked up.” Bond switched his grip from Q’s arm to his wrist. “Stay close. And turn off the torch in case we need it later.”

Q turned off the torch and shoved it into his pocket. “Can we make it back through the trees like this?”

“Would you rather go back inside to wait for the storm to pass?” Bond asked grimly.

Q shot him a dirty look. “Don’t give me that patronising bullshit. I was simply wondering if we shouldn’t pick a different route back.”

Bond let go to spread his hands, glaring right back at Q. “Pick a bloody direction, then.”

Q didn’t blink as he tried to parse out what to do. Petulantly, he was tempted to head in the opposite direction from where they’d started just to piss Bond off. The problem was, he had no clue where that would take them. If it didn’t get him out of this godforsaken place, then there was no point.

“I don’t care,” he conceded. “That said, we’re both on edge right now, and the last thing we need is to be treating each other like shit.”

With a visible effort to rein in his own temper, Bond took a deep, steadying breath and then nodded. “The whole damned place is forested,” he said, his voice gruff but no longer angry. “We’ll have to take our chances with the trees. If you feel the ground go soft underfoot, speak up.”

“Why? I mean, what would that be?”

Bond started walking, once again taking hold of Q’s wrist. “Just because the ground _should_ be frozen doesn’t mean we won’t hit a bloody sinkhole. And I’d rather not end up hospitalised with pneumonia.” Then he stopped and let go so he could take off his gloves. “Here, put these on.”

“I don’t — All right.” Q sighed and took the gloves from Bond. As he slid his right hand in, he felt something snag before a sharp pain shot up his finger. He swore viciously and yanked his hand back out. He held his finger up to see that the glue had cracked and the papercut was bleeding through the plaster. Profusely. “Bugger. How...”

Bond searched his pockets until he found a handkerchief. “Wrap it. It must be the cold,” Bond said, handing it to Q. “Put the gloves on. Don’t worry about bleeding into them.”

Q eyed the pocket square, but didn’t take it. “Bond, the glove isn’t going to fit over that.”

Bond grimaced and pulled a folding knife out of his pocket. He opened it with a quiet click and cut the pocket square into strips. “Pack it as best you can. Pressure will at least slow the bleeding.”

Q grabbed the cloth and wrapped it tight around his finger. “But how is it even still bleeding? The cold should slow down the process, not make it worse.” Irritated, he shoved his hand back into the glove, wincing as he jammed his finger into the tip. He took a deep breath and slowly slid the other glove on. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he looked back up at Bond. “All right. Where to?”

Bond took hold of Q’s sleeve and started walking again, heading slowly into the trees, away from the building. “I know where the gate is, but I’d rather backtrack than chance getting lost.”

Worried about tripping with his hands in his pockets, Q pulled them out and kept walking. He reached up and grabbed Bond’s hand, allowing him to lead. “You aren’t concerned about getting lost in the trees?”

“No.”

Q glanced sideways at Bond, but didn’t say anything. Bond had already earned his trust as a field agent. There was no reason not to respect that now. He never paused or hesitated, instead he walked steadily but slowly, mindful of fallen branches, and patches where the snow had frozen into ice. The pressure of Bond’s fingers, wrapped around his left hand, was a reassuring distraction from the throbbing pain in his right, where he was convinced blood had seeped through the padding and was now soaking the leather.

Without checking his watch or mobile, he had no gauge to tell how much time had passed before Bond slowed down again. All Q knew was that he was shivering more than he should have been. When they came to a stop, Q let go of Bond’s hands to wrap his arms around himself. His parka shifted in an unnatural sort of way and he felt an icy chill slither across the top of his back.

He looked up first, thinking a tree was dropping more snow on him. His shirt was still wet — and cold, he realised, shrugging his rucksack off to look over his shoulder. That was when he saw the tear running from halfway down his back. He reached back to feel where the rip had stopped between his shoulderblades. “What the hell?” he whispered. “Bond, do you know what happened to my parka?”

Bond had crouched down to examine the ground. He rose and gently pushed Q’s shoulder, turning him around. “Fuck. You’re going to end up freezing like that. It must have torn on the door.”

Perfect. He’d ruined his favourite coat after hallucinating a fire, and now he he was freezing because of it. Q leaned down to pick up his rucksack, only to see Bond strip off his bomber jacket.

“Hold this,” he told Q.

“What are you doing?”

“Not having you freeze to death.” He shoved the jacket at Q, who caught it before it hit the snow.

As Bond started stripping off his jumper, Q put up his free hand to stop him. “I appreciate your concern, 007, but it’s not that bad. I already have a jumper on. I don’t need a second. I’m not going to freeze to death. But if you try going without yours, I’m certain you will.”

“As long as we’re moving, I’ll be fine,” Bond insisted, stubbornly pulling off his jumper. He held it out, extending his other hand toward the jacket. “You’re stuck in the parka — It wouldn’t fit me — so put this on, and let’s get moving again.”

“You know — fine.” Tired of arguing, Q dropped his rucksack and handed back the jacket. He shrugged out of his parka and dropped it on top of the bag. He stripped off his own jumper — _God_ , it was cold — before snatching the one in Bond’s hands to throw on. Finally, he put his parka back on, and balled up his admittedly wet jumper to shove into his pack. Gathering it up, he turned to Bond and said, “There. Now may we please go?”

Bond closed his jacket — Q caught a hint of a shiver, though he seemed otherwise unaffected by the cold. “If you die on my watch, I’ll end up sacked,” Bond said blandly as he started walking again.

“That’s what we love about you, Bond. You’re more worried about getting fired than _dying_ ,” Q said with a faint laugh.

“Priorities, Quartermaster. If I get fired, I’ll have to go freelance.” Bond looked around, sniffing the air. Then he raised his hands to his mouth and exhaled to warm himself. “I can’t smell a blasted thing. We should be nearing the water,” he said doubtfully.

“Could you smell the water earlier?”

“I _thought_ I could...” He shook his head uncertainly and shoved his hands in his pockets, focusing his attention on the ground as he kept walking. “Is there a reason we’re doing this in the dead of winter, rather than six months from now?”

Q huffed in irritation. “Because the bloody historical society wants us out of the tunnels as quickly as possible. They’re not going to love it when we tell them the only viable option _is_ the tunnels.” He turned to glance suspiciously at Bond. The place was absolutely horrid, but that didn't mean Bond would support Q when he told Gareth they had to stay put.

Bond met his gaze. “At least we’re agreed on that much,” he said grimly. “As it is, I’m damn tempted to come back here with some of the trainee agents for a refresher on setting explosive devices.”

Q breathed a small sigh of relief and smiled. “Just tell me of what and how much, and I’ll be sure to write it off as a training exercise.”

 

~~~

 

Bond kept walking. Each successive step was a bit heavier as he tested the ground, searching for any hint of mud or softness or _any_ sign of the blasted water. He didn’t want to worry Q, but they should’ve been to the pond and past it by now.

They were lost.

Fucking _shit_.

Bond concentrated on walking in a straight line as much as possible, though even that was a challenge. Twisted roots and branches forced them to sidestep, and the snow and fog made it impossible to gauge direction and distance.

Should he start thinking in terms of survival rather than escape? Possibly, though their resources were sparse. Not two hours from the outskirts of London, and they could end up dead from exposure. He’d been so bloody confident that this was nothing more than a walk in the park — literally, given the conditions he’d expected to find — that he’d done nothing to prepare. Not even a damned Mylar survival blanket.

At least Q wasn’t shivering quite so badly. _Bond_ was, though he was trying to hide it. Besides, he had no illusions as to which of them was more valuable.

Darkness loomed out of nowhere, a bleak shadow that froze Bond in his tracks. He nearly checked his watch, thinking there was no possible way it could already be night-time, but another step brought him through the fog. The darkness resolved itself into a building, this one with neat brickwork and ornate Victorian trim.

 _Warmth_ , Bond thought, though he didn’t take another step. Four walls and a roof no longer offered certain safety — not here in this abandoned hell.

“How the bloody...” Q whispered as he came to stand next to Bond. He turned to face him, clearly dumbfounded. “How the fuck did we find another building and not the pond? We were heading back the same way, were we not?”

Bond hesitated, looking from the building to Q and back again. “I thought we were,” he admitted quietly, much as it galled him to give in to defeat like this. “Hell, Q, I have no idea where we are.”

Q snorted humourlessly as he patted Bond lightly on the shoulder. “Good to know you’re human, like the rest of us. I was beginning to wonder.” He stepped closer to the building and looked up at it. “Do we have to go in? Can’t we just go around it?”

Anywhere else, Bond would have insisted they get out of the weather. The cold had settled through his bomber jacket, and his legs ached from the chill. He didn’t even want to think about his feet, after his boots had got soaked in the pond. But despite all that, the thought of going into another building was unsettling.

He looked left and right; neither direction seemed more promising than the other. “This way,” he finally said, heading to the right, staying a comfortable half-metre from the building — close enough to see it even in the unusually thick fog, far enough that... _That what?_ he wondered. The bloody building wasn’t going to reach out and grab them. The worst that could happen was a collapsing wall or roof.

Which was a good enough reason to not get any closer. That thought saved him the trouble of confronting his irrational... _reluctance_ to go inside.

As the trees grew thicker, Q stumbled into Bond, who caught him and held on, despite how the snowy air bit into his hands. “Steady,” Bond murmured. “Want me to carry the rucksack for a bit?”

“I’m fine, Bond,” Q snapped, shrugging him off. He adjusted the straps on his shoulders and trudged ahead, only to slip on a branch. Bond reached out but pulled his hand back, watching instead. Q stumbled forward a few steps but managed to stay upright.

When he actually tripped, though, Bond couldn’t resist. He took two long steps to get to Q’s side and silently helped him back to his feet. “Thank you,” Q murmured.

They walked along quietly, Bond reaching out every time a branch or root caught Q underfoot. It didn’t take long for Bond to notice the ground was getting steadily worse, despite the fact that the trees were no more dense than they had been when Bond and Q started.

Frustrated, Bond wondered if he’d freeze to death before or after Q broke an ankle. “We might be better off inside,” he said reluctantly.

“You have _no idea_ how desperately I don’t want to agree with you on that,” Q grumbled. “But it’s either that, or I admit defeat and let you carry me the rest of the way.”

Bond wasn’t sure he could manage to carry Q for very long — not without warming up first — but he chose not to mention that. Instead, he nodded and looked back. Hypothermia had to be setting in; he couldn’t remember whether they’d passed a door or not.

“Window,” he finally decided. He wasn’t about to go searching for a bloody door. How long had they been walking?

“That may be our only option,” Q said as he looked up and down the building in both directions.

Bond followed his gaze, looking past the array of windows... to the corner? Confused, he turned the other way. The other corner was just a few windows away, appearing and disappearing in swirls of fog.

How the _hell_ was that even possible? They’d walked further than that without turning the corner. And where was the bloody door? A building this size should have fire doors on every wall.

It had to be hypothermia. Bond looked at the window, thinking he could boost himself up without a problem. “Stay here. If it’s safe, I can pull you inside.”

“Bond, I — all right.” Q dropped his rucksack. “You’ll need something to break the glass.”

Q turned and wandered back among the trees. Bond went after him, refusing to let him out of his sight. Q searched the ground, picking up various branches, only to discard them. After a few tries, he exclaimed, “Aha!” and picked up a heavier branch. He turned and handed it to Bond. “That should work.”

“Once I’m inside, don’t leave the window,” Bond warned. He doubted Q was interested in wandering, but he wasn’t willing to take the chance. He hefted the branch and said, “Cover your eyes.” Q nodded before he covered his eyes and turned his head. Raising one arm over his own eyes, Bond smashed the branch into the window.

Glass rained loudly down over him. He blindly swung the branch from side to side until he’d cleared most of the glass. He waited a few seconds before he backed away and lowered his arm. Shards of glass turned the opening jagged, reminding Bond ominously of teeth — which was bloody _ridiculous_ to think.

“Right.” He shrugged off his jacket and started to shiver at once. He emptied his pockets, silently chiding himself for not doing that _before_ taking the jacket off, and handed everything over to Q: keys to the SUV, keys to his car and flat, and one of his pocket knives. Then he threw the jacket over the windowsill, keeping hold of one sleeve. The way today was going, he wasn’t going to chance losing the jacket.

Q crouched down to place Bond’s items in the outer pocket of his rucksack. “At least let me help you in,” he said as he stood back up.

Bond didn’t need help, but he knew Q needed to feel useful. So he reached up, jumping the few inches it took for him to get a good grip on the stone sill. Q braced his feet and pushed until Bond could straighten his arms and boost himself up. Small shards of glass crunched under his hands, but the jacket protected him.

“Have you got it?” Q asked tightly.

“Clear,” Bond answered, ducking to twist through the window. He felt his shirt catch before glass tore through fabric and skin. Biting back a grunt of pain, he looked into the room. Unsurprisingly, it was dark.

“Torch,” he said, never looking away from the darkness as he bent down, hand extended.

“Shit. Sorry.” Bond heard the rustle of Q’s parka. After a moment, he felt hard, round plastic as Q placed the torch in his hand.

Careful not to stab himself again, Bond switched the torch to his inside hand. Bracing himself for some new horror, he turned on the torch, dropped down off the windowsill, and swept the light through the room.

But the room was _normal_. A richly polished wooden desk that looked like an antique, an empty bookshelf, a high-backed executive chair... It was even carpeted in avocado shag that hadn’t been fashionable for forty years, if ever.

“It’s safe,” he said reluctantly, only because of the cold. There was nothing _safe_ about this at all, but he needed to get Q inside, once more under guard, and he needed to put his bloody jacket back on.

Bond turned just in time to see Q’s rucksack sliding through the window. “Grab that, please!” Q shouted from outside.

“Careful — there’s more glass,” Bond called back. He caught the rucksack, only to set it aside. He ducked low and looked through the window. The fog had crept closer to the building, coiling around Q. “If you cover your eyes, I can knock out the rest of the shards.”

“Or I could just turn away,” Q responded drily. He closed his eyes anyway, and turned his head.

Figuring his leather jacket was a lost cause, Bond put his hand into one sleeve and pushed out the jagged glass on all four sides of the window frame. It was still rough, but at least Q wouldn’t end up bleeding, if they were both careful.

Bond spread the jacket out again, unable to hide his shivering. “Clear.” He braced his knees against the wall and leaned over. When he reached down for Q, the stretch made his cut shoulder sting.

Q turned back and reached up to take Bond’s hands. He placed one foot against the wall and pushed off, allowing Bond to drag him up through the momentum. His chest hit the jacket hard, and Bond hoped nothing poked through the leather hard enough to tear into the front of Q’s parka. The coat was damaged enough.

Q let go of Bond’s hands to grip the windowsill so he could swing his legs inside. He planted his feet on the carpet and turned to smile triumphantly, only for it to drop off as he stared at the room, completely nonplussed.

“How the hell...” Q trailed off as he took in the room. Then he turned to Bond, throwing out his arms in frustration. “What is _wrong_ with this place?”

Equally frustrated, Bond asked, “You’re _certain_ it’s abandoned?” He picked up his jacket and held it up, examining the ripped leather critically. “I’m billing Mallory for this.”

“I completely support MI6 replacing our jackets,” Q muttered absently. He walked around the desk, running his fingers along the smooth wood as he did. As he came back around, he turned the chair on its axis. Surprisingly, it barely made a sound. After forty years, time and rust should have settled in to make the chair squeal. Instead, it spun smoothly and silently.

Q looked up at Bond, confused. “In everything that you read, was there _any_ reference to any parts of this property being in use after the hospital shut down? Any at all?”

“Nothing.” Bond turned and looked around again, wondering what the _hell_ was going on here? “Oh, fucking Christ,” he muttered as an idea hit. “This isn’t another bloody Baskerville, is it? It wouldn’t be the first time two government agencies _weren’t_ on speaking terms.”

“Doubtful,” Q mused. “Baskerville likes things to be shiny and metal and new. I can’t picture them thinking shag carpet is a good idea. Even back in the seventies.”

Distracted, Bond turned on Q and asked, “Have you _been there_?” Even _he_ hadn’t been there, though admittedly he hadn’t tried very hard.

Q smiled mischievously. “I’m afraid the answer to that is above your pay grade, 007.”

Now he’d have to put in the damned effort, which meant a drive to Devon. He huffed and turned away, deciding he’d save that for some other time. He wasn’t interested in getting caught and ending up in prison; this site was more than enough for one weekend.

He spotted a light switch and crossed to it, thinking that was a simple way to determine if the site was in use. Scientists liked their creature comforts, and he couldn’t picture anyone working here without electricity.

“Bond, what’s that?” Q walked up behind Bond and lightly placed his hands on his back. “Dammit, you cut yourself. And fairly decently, I’d say. It’s bleeding quite a bit.” He gently prodded around the edges. Bond couldn’t keep from flinching away from the sting. Q lifted his hands and asked, “Do you have the rest of that handkerchief?”

“Should’ve brought the bloody medkit,” Bond muttered. A search of his pockets turned up nothing useful. He _thought_ he’d put the fabric scraps into a pocket, but apparently he hadn’t — that or they’d fallen out. “It’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with worse,” he finally said.

“Just hold still for a minute,” Q chided. Bond felt him pull away and he turned to see Q bend over and dig through his rucksack. He opened it and pulled out his old, damp jumper. He zipped the rucksack and headed back to Bond. “Turn around,” he said quietly. Bond felt the chill of wet cloth as Q slowly wiped at his back. He let out a small huff and wiped again. “That’s interesting.”

“Interesting,” Bond repeated. What the hell did that mean? “Is there glass in it?”

“Well, no, but...” Q huffed again as he wiped Bond’s back for a third time. “There’s quite a bit of blood here, but the cut is extremely shallow. And when I say ‘shallow’, I mean the kind where there should be almost no blood at all. Honestly, there’s enough here that, at first, I thought you were going to need stitches.”

Experimentally, Bond flexed his shoulder. “It feels as if I do. I felt the glass rip —” He cut off, not wanting to upset Q with a grotesque description. “If it’s shallow, leave it.”

“Bond, I can’t. You don’t understand. It keeps bleeding. Profusely.”

Bond stepped away and turned as he pulled on his ripped jacket. “It’s not a bullet wound. It’ll stop,” he said, though he couldn’t help but glance at Q’s gloved hand. His finger hadn’t stopped bleeding until they’d glued the wound — and even then, it had reopened. “Did Medical do something?” he asked suspiciously. “Some experimental anticoagulant in the last round of vaccinations?”

“Yes, Bond,” Q said flatly. “Because that’s just what Medical wants. For its agents and personnel to bleed out in the field from a scratch.” He balled up the jumper, but continued to eye Bond uncertainly. “Do you want me to at least pad it?  Your jacket and that shirt won’t help staunch the flow.”

“Let’s just get out of here.” Bond went back to the light switch and flipped it a couple of times, but the recessed lights in the ceiling didn’t respond. He wasn’t interested enough to ask if Q had anything to plug into the wall outlets. “Maybe the building’s just sealed against the dust,” he guessed, refusing to entertain thoughts of pathogens in the air vents. Instead, he went to the door and opened it.

“The only way that could be true is if the place was cleaned of _all dust_ before it was closed, and then it would need to have been hermetically sealed.” Q said as he went to pick up his rucksack. He unzipped it and shoved the jumper back in. He closed it back up, putting it on. “If the building — or at least this room — _had_ been sealed, the window would have blown out when you broke it.” He stopped to catch Bond’s eye and said, “Regardless of the fact that this room has no decay, there should _at least_ be dust.”

He was right, damn him. After being sealed, the building would’ve been pressurised to keep contaminants from being drawn inside if there was a breach. He turned on the torch, pushing the mystery out of his mind. “We’ll let someone else figure it out,” he decided as he stepped through the doorway. The hallway stretched left and right as far as his torchlight would reach. Doors on either side but no windows. No helpful emergency exit sign.

Q stepped out next to him and looked up and down the hallway. “Which way should we go?”

Bond shrugged. There was no point in even pretending he knew. Instead, he said, “Right.” It was as good a guess as any.

 

~~~

 

Q wanted to go home. Actually, he wished he had never left. If he were at home, he’d be working on the new DNA sensor for the armoury to replace the palmprint coder. It would work much better against burns and other issues that might arise to damage the print of an agent.

Instead he was here in this godforsaken place, aimlessly roaming the halls, cut off from the technology that would’ve at least kept him from being lost, if he could get a blasted signal. He should have trusted his instincts. He should have just told Gareth to sod off and leave Q Branch where it was. He should’ve implemented one of his last resort plans; he especially liked the one involving falsified financial data implicating the historical society in tax evasion.

But no. He was an _executive_ now. Damn Gareth for enticing him with money and promises of shiny technology and the freedom to do whatever he wanted — _except_ stay in the damned tunnels.

Still, Gareth had done one thing right. Having Bond here meant Q wasn’t alone to get lost — and Q had no doubt that he would have done, without Bond.

Well, no. They were _both_ lost. They just weren’t lost and alone.

All the corridors looked the same, no matter which way they went. Q followed Bond past a half dozen side corridors before Bond finally paused at an intersection. Then he turned and resumed walking, though with no better results: just corridors and doors, without a window or anything else in sight.

Finally, Q stopped and turned to Bond, exasperated. “Maybe we should start trying some of these doors? One of them _has_ to lead to a stairwell, or a lift, or — oh, I don’t know — the bloody front door?”

“Which one?” Bond asked, equally frustrated. He stopped and gestured to the doors on either side. “They’re all the same.”

Q kept his features stony. He didn’t want Bond to see how unnerved he was by the fact that Bond was right. They had turned enough corners; at some point there should have at least been a fire exit. But there wasn’t. It was just hallways full of identical doors with no markers. He felt like the kid in _The Shining_. The next turn he made would have him staring down a pair of creepy, identical twin children.

“I don’t know, just pick a door,” Q said apprehensively. “One of these has _got_ to lead _somewhere_.”

“Hardly a comforting thought, given our current definition of ‘somewhere’,” Bond muttered, though he obligingly opened the nearest door and aimed the torch inside.

When Bond didn’t actually go inside, Q moved beside him to have a look.

“It’s...” Q began, falling into a stunned silence.

“The same,” Bond finished, playing the torchlight over untouched, dust-free furniture. The angle of the chair told Q it was the actual room they had entered through.

“That’s not possible,” Q whispered. He swallowed as he felt the bile rise up in his throat. There was simply _no way_ this could be the same room.

Then Bond took two long steps in, torch aimed at the window —

Which was intact, clear panes of glass glowing softly with the fog pressing against the outside of the building.

Q breathed out a sigh of relief. With no broken window, they obviously hadn’t stumbled upon the _only_ room they’d been in. He glanced at the chair and tried not to let it bother him that he’d left the previous room with the chair in the exact same position. Coincidences weren’t common, but they were still possible...

“Looks like their interior decorator had no sense of creativity,” Q commented, ignoring how hollow he sounded. “Keep going?”

Q saw Bond’s shoulders tense. Then he crossed the room and looked out the window. Despite how bright the windows were, the office was too dark, turning Bond into an ominous silhouette. “Nothing,” he murmured, walking back to Q. “I can’t see a bloody thing out there. We keep going. But first” — he nodded at Q’s rucksack — “do you have a pen in there?”

“No,” Q responded, brows knit in confusion. “What do you need a pen for?”

“To mark the doors.” Bond slid his right arm out of the sleeve of his jacket. He turned his back, offering Q the torch. “Am I still bleeding?”

Q aimed the torch at Bond’s shoulder, only to flinch at the sight of the blood. There was simply too much of it. Even if it hadn’t stopped, it should have at least slowed. “How are you not lightheaded right now?” he asked absently. He reached out to touch the area, but pulled his hand back, irrationally worried about infecting it. The shirt and jacket would do that for him just fine.

“It’s not a bullet wound,” Bond said, sounding inappropriately amused. “You’ll have to mark the door yourself.”

“ _With the blood?_ ”

Bond didn’t turn around. “Do you have a pen?” he asked steadily.

Q glared at Bond, even if he couldn’t see it. “Don’t even try to lie; you’ve done this in the field, haven’t you?”

“Danielle never told you about that holiday card I sent her, did she?”

Bond was lying. Bond _had_ to be lying. He would never do that to someone like _Danielle_. He wouldn’t be alive to tell the tale. Horrified at the very idea, Q accused, “You did not!”

“No, but now that you’ve put the idea in my head...” Bond looked innocently back at Q. “Mark the door so we can get moving.”

Q slowly removed the glove from his uninjured hand before peeling the fabric back from the oozing wound on Bond’s shoulder. He glanced uncertainly at it before sliding his finger through the mess, careful to avoid the actual cut itself. “This is really bad, Bond. I’d hazard it’s worse than my finger,” he commented as he let go of the shirt and turned towards the door. He ran his finger crisscross at eye level, leaving a small red ‘X’ across the centre. “There.”

Bond glanced at the mark as he put the jacket back on, though he hesitated before zipping it up. “We should mark the intersections. I’ve been counting, but we still could be going in circles.”

Q let out a slow breath and said, “Honestly, I’d willingly let us both spend the next _month_ in Medical from infection if it gets us out of here faster.”

“Any other day, I’d argue.” Bond closed the door and continued down the hall, though this time he stopped at the next intersection. “Do I need to take off my jacket, or can you reach underneath?”

“It would be better if you took off your jacket, yes.” 

Again, Bond only pulled his right arm out of the sleeve. When Q touched Bond’s shirt to wet his finger with blood, he saw Bond shiver. It wasn’t pain — Q had been careful not to touch the wound itself.

He stepped back to properly look at Bond. Now he couldn’t help but notice the slight tremor that ran along Bond’s skin. He had to be _freezing_. “007, please tell me you’re not cold,” Q said, trying for annoyance but failing miserably over his very real concern for the agent. “Not after you _assured_ me you would be fine without your jumper. You’re starting to look like death, and I feel bad enough, as it is.”

“I’m fine.” Bond shot Q another look over his shoulder. “The mark?”

Q opened his mouth to argue, only to close it again. Bond was turning out to be one of the most infinitely stubborn people Q had ever met. It was a wonder that stubbornness hadn’t gotten him killed already.

Without a word, Q turned to draw a small ‘X’ at eye-level on the wall. He turned to Bond expectantly. Bond nodded and put his jacket back on as he turned the corner.

They walked down the hallway, opening doors at random as they went. Every one seemed to house the same type of office — green carpet, desk, chair, and bookcase. Q resolutely refused to acknowledge that each office didn’t just look similar, but looked _exactly_ the same. Each one held a chair in the exact same position he’d left the first chair in, and he had a mad impulse to move one of them just to see if it looked different in the next office.

To make matters worse, every hallway ended in a T-intersection. But it didn’t matter if they went left or right. After a few turns, they still ended up down the same hallway they’d first marked. Yet they didn’t always come across the other marked doors when they tried again to find their way out.

“I cannot figure out how this building is laid out if we keep ending up back here,” Q observed after the third time coming upon the same corridor. “How is it possible we keep ending up here without seeing any of the other marks when we turn a corner?”

Bond shook his head, jaw set tightly. “It’s not.” He took a deep breath, looking at the hallway rather than meeting Q’s eyes. “I’ve been counting our steps. This _isn’t possible_.”

“It _has_ to be possible, Bond. There’s the damn door,” Q said, pointing at the bloody ‘X’ on one of the closed doors. He felt an irrational spark of anger at the absurdity of the situation. He stalked over to the mark and pointed at it. “This is most definitely the first ‘X’ I made. It even —” Q stopped cold when his finger absently ran along the mark. It was still wet, and not in the way that implied it hadn’t finished drying. It was as though he’d only put the mark up moments before.

“What the bloody fuck?” he whispered as he rubbed his fingers together. He looked up at Bond and tried not to panic. “It’s not dry, Bond. How the _hell_ is it not dry?”

“Humidity,” Bond said, though that wasn’t possible — and by Bond’s tone, he knew it. He turned and opened the door to his left. “Another office. Check that side,” he said, gesturing to the right side of the hallway before he moved on to the next door.

Q turned to open the next door — the same office — before walking to the next, leaving the door open. They continued down the hallway like this, opening each door to check its contents before moving on. When they reached the T-intersection again, Q turned to Bond. “Anything?”

“We should probably stay left at all the intersections,” Bond finally said, looking at the array of open doors behind them. “My side has windows. We’ll find an exit there.”

“How can your side have windows? _My_ side has windows. You know it does.”

“How the hell can _your_ side have windows?” Bond snapped, crossing the hall. He threw open a door on Q’s side, saying, “The building’s not that —” He cut off, twisting to look back across the hall. “What the _fucking hell_?”

Q looked between the two offices. Sure enough, there were windows looking out onto the fog on both sides. But with this many turns, at least one row _had_ to be inner offices.

“We need to get out of here,” Q ground out. He was properly panicked now and didn’t care if it was obvious. “We need to find that original office and _get out_.”

After giving Q a quick, assessing look, Bond took gentle hold of Q’s shoulders. “We’ll get out, Q,” he said steadily. “There are windows on both sides. Plain glass — not reinforced glass or bricked up. We just need to stay calm.”

Q’s breathing became shallow and he reached out to grab hold of Bond’s jacket as he tried to steady himself. “There’s something _not right_ about this place, Bond. We’re trying to leave and we _can’t_. What if we can’t find our way out? If my MI6-issued tech doesn’t work out here, you think our tracers will? They won’t even be able to find us!” Q’s vision started to swim, and he rested his forehead on Bond’s chest. He tried to take a deep breath, but all that did was make him want to vomit. He barked out a laugh and said, “I’m not going to die here, Bond.”

“Do you think I am?” Bond demanded. “Now are you going to calm down, or do I have to carry you?”

Q started to chuckle, head still pressed against Bond’s chest. Before long, he was laughing uncontrollably. He knew he sounded psychotic, but he couldn’t stop himself. He lifted his head to smile at Bond. “Weren’t those the exact words you used on that woman in Cairo?” he asked between fits of laughter. “I believe you made good on that threat and ended up sleeping with her, if I’m not mistaken.”

“If that’s what you want, you’ll have to wait until we’re out of here.”

Q released Bond’s jacket and stared at him, completely nonplussed. “I wasn’t... I — never mind.” He pulled away and took a deep breath to clear his head. The last thing he needed was for Bond to see just how effectively that comment had snapped him out of his panic attack.

After a few seconds, Bond asked, “Ready to move on, then?”

Q nodded as he turned back around. “We need to keep better tabs on these doors. Even if that ‘X’ was my original marking, it’s hard to tell when everything looks exactly the same.”

“Different marks. Start numbering the doors,” Bond said, turning to take off his jacket again.

Q ripped off the glove on his injured hand, pulling the cloth wrap with it. Sure enough, his finger was still bleeding. “Put your jacket back on. It’ll just be faster this way.” He walked over to the nearest door on his side and marked it with the number one. He turned to the door directly across and marked it with the number two. “There. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Bond looked both directions at the T-intersection before he said, “Left,” and turned to head in that                                                        direction. At the first door they found, he threw it open to reveal yet another office exactly the same. “Mark each door we open,” he said quietly before turning to open the same door directly across.

Q marked the two doors with a small number three and number four — both to keep tabs on how many they’d opened and which. He hoped that they could keep track of not just the doors, but the various hallways this way.

They were about halfway down the hall when Q stopped to wipe his finger with the bloody cloth from his glove. “You know, all these markings should have at least staunched the blood flow. How —”

_BAM!_

Q jumped and spun around, slamming into Bond. A quick jerk on the back of Q’s jacket threw Q behind Bond, who had his gun out, aimed down the hallway at —

Nothing.

The noise had come from behind them, but there was no sign of _anything_. The hallway stretched too far off into the distance, an emptiness Q could sense even beyond the reach of Bond’s torch. Open doors gaped like black holes to either side, and Q pressed closer to Bond, skin crawling at the thought of what might be in that darkness.

“What was that?” Q whispered harshly into Bond’s ear.

“Wind.”

“Wind doesn’t _slam_ , Bond. It... whooshes,” Q responded, waving vaguely in the direction of the noise.

Bond started to turn when another loud _bang_ echoed down the hallway. Before Q could even gasp, Bond’s hand closed on his shoulder, pushing him in the direction they’d been going, away from the noise. “Move,” he growled quietly, breaking into a jog.

Q started to run and tried to imagine it really was just the wind knocking into things, possibly on the floors above. It sounded too much like a door slamming, but each office had a closed window. There was no wind to slam the doors shut.

Bond turned Q right at the next T-intersection. He only made it three steps before he stopped dead in his tracks, right next to the first door.

Bond ran into him; they both stumbled. “Q, move!” Bond snapped. “What’s wrong?”

Q didn’t answer him. He slowly turned back, refusing to believe what he’d just seen. As his eyes fell on the door, he gasped.

There on the door was a bloody red ‘X’ with a short smudge down the middle.

Q felt the air being sucked out of the hall as his vision narrowed down to that one point. He stood frozen to the spot. His mind latched on to the last two turns they’d made — a left, then a right. They hadn’t gone in a circle. They should have been going _away_ from that door, not back the way they’d come.

_So how the fuck were they back at the same door?_

“Bond,” Q said in a barely audible whisper, still unable to look away. “Tell me that isn’t the same ‘X’ that I smudged. _Tell me it’s not._ ”

Bond’s fingers clenched hard on Q’s shoulder. “We got turned —” he said as another _bang_ echoed through the hallway. “This must be the original hallway — where we came in.”

“Bond, we’ve seen countless hallways with identical offices in every room. How could you _possibly_ know that?”

“What else could it bloody well be?” Bond demanded. He took Q by both shoulders and turned him away from the door. When their eyes met, he said, “ _Think_ , Q! We got turned around, and we’re back where we started!”

“But we’re _always_ back where we — oh!” Q stopped at the realisation of what Bond was saying. They were back where they _started._ “We never checked the rooms down this hallway. In theory, the office we came in from — the one with the broken window — should be here.” He didn’t want to think about the repercussions of how they kept ending up back here. He just knew that if Bond was right, they might have a way out.

Bond nodded. “So we find it. We get out,” he said, twitching as another _bang_ sounded. He gave Q a shove to the left and said, “Start opening doors.”

Q turned back to the door with the red ‘X’ and, steeling himself, threw the door open to find... nothing. No broken window. Just the same office they’d been seeing for far too long. “Nothing here,” he said.

“Keep going,” Bond said, turning away from the office on his side. “And leave the doors open.”

“Right.” Q moved up to the next door and opened it, only to find the same thing. “Still nothing,” he muttered before heading to the next door.

Door after door, every room was exactly the same, and _none_ of them had a broken window. As they neared the end of the hallway, there was another _bang_ from somewhere in the building. A sense of dread started to settle over Q like ice. What if they really never did get out?

Q felt his insides tighten at the sight of the number one on the last door. Bond stood in front of the door with the number two, but neither of them opened their respective doors. Q looked up to catch Bond’s eye. “It has to be one of these,” he said evenly.

Before Bond could answer, a loud _bang_ made them both turn. Bond had his gun aimed down the hallway, torch held just under the muzzle, but the light didn’t seem to reach very far at all. “Q —” he began, before the next loud bang sounded, closer this time — close enough that Q knew it was on the left side.

 _Bang_. Right side. _The doors_ , Q realised. He started to count the passing seconds.

“Q.” This time, the word came out sharp. Tense.

“That’s not wind,” Q said softly.

 _Bang_. Left side. Seven seconds. Coming closer.

Bond sidestepped in front of Q, shielding him. “We’re not alone.” The light of the torch inched back towards them as the hallway grew darker.

The next door slammed closed before Q reached a count of five. Feeling the panic start to seize control, he whispered tightly, “We need to get out of here. _Now_.”

Bond shoved open the door on his side, and grabbed hold of Q to pull him inside. Behind them, another door banged shut — then another, not even a second later.

Bond swung the torch around, and light flashed on the intact window. Q threw the door shut behind them, hoping to at least stall whatever was coming down that hall at them. He turned in time to see Bond pick up the chair and throw it through the window.

“Follow me,” he said. He held up one arm to shield his eyes from loose shards of glass and rushed at the window. He dove out without hesitation.

Terrified that he was now alone in the building, Q rushed to the window to see Bond roll across the ground and stand up in one smooth motion.

He yanked off his rucksack and shouted, “Catch!” before chucking it out the window. Without waiting to see if Bond caught the bag, Q grabbed the top of the windowsill and threw a leg over the edge.

_BAM!_

Q looked back as the door to the office flew open and slammed into the wall. All he saw was darkness. He didn’t hesitate before he threw his other leg over and let go of the window.

Bond caught him and stumbled back. He had Q’s rucksack over the shoulder that wasn’t bleeding. He drew his gun from where he’d shoved it into his waistband and said, “Run.”

Q looked around at the broken glass and twisted remnants of the chair Bond had used to break the window. Not knowing which way to go, he started to run towards the forest with Bond close behind. As he passed into the trees, he slowed down, stumbling over tree roots that seemed to grasp at his ankles. “Bond wait. Stop.”

Bond barely glanced at Q; all of his attention was focused on watching their surroundings. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not. I just don’t know where we’re going,” Q said, frustrated, as he turned to look back through the trees. “We went _into_ that building because we couldn’t get out of this damn forest...”

He trailed off into stunned silence as what he was seeing finally registered. There was no sign of the chair Bond had thrown through the window — and no sign of the broken window itself. They hadn’t run more than ten metres away. It should still be directly behind them. But it wasn’t. None of the windows he could see had so much as a _crack_ in them, let alone an entire missing pane.

“Bond.” Q found himself moving unconsciously toward the building to investigate. “Where’s the broken window?” He stared intently, as though trying to will the broken window back into existence.

Bond took hold of Q’s arm and slowly pulled him back. “It doesn’t matter,” he said harshly. “We have more important things to worry about. Now move.”

Irritated, Q tried to shrug out of Bond’s hold. “Move _where_ , Bond?” he snapped. Bond didn’t answer except to grip more tightly, fingers digging into Q’s arm. Q continued to struggle against Bond as his eyes roamed the side of the building for any sign that they had just been there. But there was no chair, no window, no _nothing_. Hell, the longer he looked, the less certain he became he was even looking at the right window.

As Q desperately continued to search the area, the silence was broken with a deafening crash when every window in the building exploded at once.


	5. Chapter 5

The most complex missions — the ones that started with gunshot wounds and got worse from there — had taught Bond to dig deeply into a reserve of strength he’d never known before MI6. He drew on that now, pushing aside all the questions and confusion in his mind, so he could focus on his mission: get the Quartermaster to safety. Nothing else mattered. Not now and not later, if he had any say in it, because they would _never come back_. If Mallory or the historical society or the bloody PM wanted to send any part of Q Branch here, Bond would happily commit murder on British soil to ensure that it never happened.

So he ran, one hand locked around Q’s arm as if in fear that something would snatch Q away, the other hand free. As much as Bond wanted to draw his gun, to take security in that familiar comfort, there was nothing here to shoot. Instead, he kept his hand up, protecting his eyes from snow-heavy branches that hung low. They were making too much noise, panting for breath in the cold, snapping twigs underfoot, but speed was more important than stealth. His every instinct urged him to move faster, as if whatever chased them would be able to follow even if they were as quiet as mice.

“I can still see it,” Q said, his voice tight as he ran alongside Bond.

Reluctantly, Bond slowed. “What?” he asked, twisting to look back.

He saw the answer before Q could gasp out another word. The building was _still there_ , glimpsed in dark patches between the jagged branches and swirls of fog.

Disbelief nearly made Bond stumble, but he forced it out of his mind. This wasn’t the time to think about it. There would _never_ be a time to think about it. He’d go back to London and spend the rest of the weekend drinking until he couldn’t remember anything. And if Q had any bloody sense, he’d do the same damned thing.

“Keep moving,” Bond told him, and did just that, refusing to look anywhere but ahead, where they _had to_ find their escape.

Q tripped in his attempt to speed up but caught himself before Bond had to slow down again. He ran as closely to Bond as possible, occasionally bumping into him. The sound of Q’s rucksack thrashing against his back made Bond wonder if they shouldn’t just ditch it all together.

He was still trying to build a mental map of the grounds, though there was no hope of reconciling the mobius-strip twists and turns they’d taken. The building was off to their left, the forest to their right, but going deeper into the forest meant they’d be moving _away_ from the gate. He thought. Not that he could be certain of anything anymore.

Still, he veered away from the building, hoping they’d stumble on a path or somewhere safe they could get warm and catch their breath. He was trained for endurance running, and Q was in much better shape than he appeared, but they were both tired and cold. And while Q’s cut finger was hardly life-threatening, Bond could feel his own shirt soaking down the back from his bleeding shoulder.

Then he caught a glimpse of darkness ahead and to the right — _not_ the building, he hoped. Hell, not _any_ of the buildings they’d entered so far. At that thought, he slowed to a walk, wondering if he could trust any building at all.

Q fell into step beside Bond. “Why did you...” Q trailed off as he followed Bond’s line-of-sight to the ruined walls that were peeking through the trees. “ _Please_ tell me we aren’t actually going over there. Are we?”

Everything in Bond was screaming for him to say no, but he slowly nodded. “We have to check if it’s somewhere we’ve been,” he said quietly. He wanted to promise that they wouldn’t go inside, but he couldn’t. They needed to find shelter, even if it was just long enough to warm up.

“It doesn’t look familiar to me,” Q muttered a bit desperately.

Not that either of them could see any details yet, though Bond didn’t say that. He was just as reluctant as Q — and Q lacked Bond’s field training. “We’re not going inside unless it’s safe,” Bond promised truthfully, though he had no idea how to gauge ‘safe’ here. The only thing he knew with any certainty was that the nearest safety was the bloody SUV by the gates.

Q grabbed Bond by the arm. He pulled him up short, turning Bond to face him, fear unmistakable in his eyes. “Bond, I —” Q stopped, searching Bond’s own battle-worn eyes. Whatever he saw made him let go. He dropped his head and sighed. “All right.” He nodded and looked back up. “I trust you to get us out of here.”

If that was true, Q was a fool, but Bond held his tongue, selfishly hanging onto the unwarranted praise. He started walking again, this time holding Q’s arm more gently, and hoped his choice not to just turn from the building and run wouldn’t get them both killed.

 

~~~

 

Q walked beside Bond, grudgingly heading towards the darkness in front of them. He had no desire to go in there, whatever it was. It felt like every building they entered was trying to drive them just a little bit mad, and he was beginning to wonder if it might actually be working.

But he had to listen to Bond. It wasn’t that he believed Bond was right, but if one of them didn’t eventually concede to the other, neither of them would make it out of this place. Bond had more field experience. Q knew that. If either of them had even a glimmer of a chance at getting them _both_ out, it would be Bond.

“Question,” Q started tentatively. They were both on edge. He was very much aware of how easy it would be right now to set Bond off. “How do we even check if this one is safe? They _all_ appeared safe. From the outside.”

Bond’s fingers twitched against Q’s arm. “We haven’t been _injured_ ,” he said slowly, even though they both knew that was a lie. He exhaled sharply and shook his head. “We need to get out of the cold, even for a few minutes.”

“That’s not true, actually,” Q said quietly, a thought beginning to form in his mind — a thought he seriously hoped he was wrong about. “We’ve both been injured.”

“Broken glass and a paper cut before we even got here,” Bond said dismissively as he kept walking. Up ahead, the building was still little more than a dark shape. The snow and fog were too damned thick to catch more than glimpses.

“True, but you’re missing the bigger picture about both of those,” Q said. He jogged a little to keep pace with Bond. “I have no idea what time it is; I have _no clue_ how long we’ve been here. What I do know is that it has most likely been hours since we left my home. Yet, my finger is _still bleeding_. And judging by the way you’re carrying your arm, I’d hazard a guess your shoulder is still bleeding, as well.” He shook his head and glanced sidelong at Bond. “That doesn’t strike you _at all_ as peculiar?”

Bond stopped abruptly. He turned and pulled Q around to face him. “The only thing I want you thinking about is _getting the hell out of here_. Save the bloody mystery for another time. Understand?” he demanded.

Q nodded. “Yes, I just — yes.”

“Then stay focused,” Bond said more gently. He let go of Q’s shoulders and started walking again.

Q followed along in silence. He knew Bond was right, but he couldn’t shake the thought now that it had planted itself firmly in his mind. True, his cut had happened before they’d left, but that still didn’t change the fact that both wounds were too much of a coincidence when weighed against the events of the day.

A new thought occurred, and Q panicked for a brief instant. What if the bleeding _never_ stopped? The cuts didn’t appear to be getting worse, but there were no signs of the blood slowing, either.

Q shook his head at the absurdity of the idea. Of course the bleeding would stop. It _had_ to.

Then the darkness resolved itself into a wall, and Q stopped beside Bond, who was staring in silence. It wasn’t a building — or not an intact one. The wall before them was fire-blackened, like the second building, only this wall was concrete at the bottom and wood at the top, boards clawing brokenly at the sky. There was no roof, and any windows that had once been there were long since gone.

“So much for a bloody shelter,” Bond complained, starting to walk slowly along the wall. “Can you smell that? It’s fresh — the fire.”

Reluctantly, Q sniffed the air, braced for the burnt metal and charred meat smell of the second building. Here, though, all he smelled was snow and burnt wood, like a cheery campfire.

Q turned to glance questioningly at Bond. “Is it still burning somewhere?”

Bond stopped and held out his hand to Q. “If it is, that means warmth. Maybe people.”

Without thinking, Q reached out and took Bond’s hand. “I’m not sure why, but the idea of people _here_ bothers me a lot more than it probably should.”

“You forget,” Bond answered as he started walking again. “I’m _very_ good at killing people.”

Comforted by the feel of Bond’s strong hand in his own, Q managed a smile. “Well, in this sort of place, the only ‘people’ I can imagine being here are the murderous backwoods hillbilly types you see in American horror films,” he noted. “If someone comes at us wielding a chainsaw, I expect you to put that licence to kill to good use, 007.”

“We can but hope,” Bond muttered darkly. Then he made an effort at giving Q a smile, saying, “Sorry. I hate these bloody domestic missions. I much prefer having a known enemy to track.”

“Would you feel better if I gave you blanket permission to shoot anyone that crosses our path while behind these walls? Unless, of course, it’s MI6 coming to collect us.”

“As long as you do the paperwork —” Bond cut off as they reached the end of the wall, crumbling and rough. Warily, he held Q back and stepped around, reaching into his jacket pocket. Then he seemed to relax, and he took his hand back out, without his gun. “It’s clear.”

Q followed him around the edge of the wall. Beyond, he saw the charred remains of what had once been a garage: a cement floor and the heat-twisted wreckage of metal garage door tracks and I-beams that no longer supported most of the ceiling. Only the ceiling near the ruined wall was partially intact, supported by metal rafters holding up charred boards and corrugated metal roofing.

Bond squeezed Q’s hand and let go. He took another couple of steps, crossing onto the concrete. He took a breath and started to turn back as if to speak, only to stop. For a heartbeat, he stared at the wall.

Then he turned, reaching for Q as he walked back out with long, determined strides. “We should keep going,” he insisted.

“What? Why?” Q turned towards the wall. All he saw was a series of markings along the concrete wall, but being so close — and being without his glasses — he couldn’t make out much more than that.

He stepped back several paces, trying to get a better sense of what was up there. When the markings came into better focus, he froze.

_In the silence they wait_

At first the black words appeared to be nothing more than spray painted on. But the longer Q stared at them, the more red they became, red like blood, glossy and fresh. He slammed his eyes shut and shook his head. When he opened them again, the words were black again.

Afraid to look away, Q grappled out for Bond’s hand. Relief flooded through him when his hand found purchase. “I believe you’re right.”

Bond pulled Q close, fingers going tight. Their shoulders bumped as they walked quickly, nearly running. Q noticed that Bond’s gun was in his hand now, but it didn’t seem unconscious or menacing, like at the pond. Graffiti meant humans — vandals, not patients or staff — and that gave Bond the threat he’d wanted.

“I wasn’t kidding, Bond,” Q said in a low voice. As they passed back out into the trees, he frantically searched around. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see, but at this point he honestly didn’t care when he said, “You shoot anyone who comes near us.”

“With pleasure, Q,” Bond said in a quiet growl.

 

~~~

 

All too soon, another building loomed up from the white haze that filled the air. Bond stopped as soon as he saw the dark, indistinct wall. He no longer held out any hope for shelter or sanctuary. Universally, buildings here were _bad_ in a way previously reserved only for prisons or torture rooms.

But in this miserable forest, with its bare trees dripping icy water onto them and roots reaching up through the snow to catch at their feet, buildings were the only landmarks, other than the blasted pond that had apparently disappeared. He _had_ to get a look at the building.

Before he took another step, he said, “Q...” only to trail off into silence. He didn’t want to even offer Q the choice of staying behind. Bond was irrationally certain that if they separated, they’d never see one another again.

Q gripped tight against Bond’s fingers. “Do we attempt it or do we go around?”

“We stay outside. We just... go and have a look.”

Q nodded. “All right.” He stepped forward first, pulling Bond along with him. They walked slowly out of the last stand of trees, wary of the fallen branches and roots still mottled across the ground.

They were at the corner of two walls. Brick, white-edged windows... Bond’s hand clenched as he realised he’d seen this before. He tugged Q along, walking parallel to the wall.

Just steps later, they reached a familiar entryway. The first building. The double doors were closed, and Bond stopped, trying to recall if they’d left them open.

Q tilted his head back, eyes trailing up the doorway to the top of the building, still obscured by the fog. “Bond, is this...” He turned to Bond, eyes widened in surprise. “This looks like where we started.”

“It is.” Bond let out a relieved laugh and turned away, suddenly confident that they’d escape. “The path’s this way.”

“If this place wasn’t so bloody fucked up, I’d be half tempted to go in there and retrieve my glasses,” Q said, taking a step towards the doors.

The noise that followed was a low and distant rumbling, reminding Bond of the faint echoes of underground trains occasionally heard in the Q Branch tunnels. Q took a step back, and Bond put an arm around his shoulders, holding him steady as the rumbling grew closer. Was the ground shaking, or was that his imagination?

“What —” Bond cut off as the earth underfoot gave a definite tremor.

Q stumbled out of Bond’s grip. He reached back and grabbed Bond’s arm. “What the sodding hell is that?!”

“Earthquake,” Bond said automatically. He took a step back away from the building, pulling Q with him.

The rumbling had turned to thunder, though the sky was still full of fog and snow. Ahead of them, the building shimmered like a mirage.

A _crack_ made them both jump. Bond jerked Q back as a dark blur crashed down from above, only feet from where they stood, throwing snow and branches into the air.

“That’s —”

“The roof,” Bond finished, twisting to put himself between Q and the building. He turned to face Q and gave him a hard push, turning him around. “Run!"

Q ran without hesitation. He took off down the faintly visible path, Bond barely a step behind him. Branches clawed at them, but Q pushed through without prompting. The fog was still heavy, giving them bare metres of visibility out in front.

The path twisted, winding around trees and over roots. Q took a corner too quickly and stumbled, catching himself against the nearest trunk. “I’m fine,” he shouted, scrambling back to his feet, and only then did Bond realise the rumbling sound was deafeningly loud.

He looked back, cut shoulder stinging at the pull of his shirt, and saw the faint, dark shape of the building. It was shaking violently now, falling down in a deadly rain of bricks and roofing. The sound of glass shattering was almost lost under the clamour.

“Are you coming?” Q yelled from behind.

Bond turned away, refusing to speculate, and called, “Go!” as he broke into a run. He followed Q, concentrating only on their safe escape. They’d found the first building. They’d found the path. That was all that mattered.

 

~~~

 

Not ten minutes later, Q came to a halt so abruptly that Bond ran into him. “Q —”

“The gate,” Q interrupted. Unlike earlier, when the iron and chains had held an almost instant sense of foreboding, the site in front of him now was probably the most welcoming thing he’d seen all day.

He walked up to the black gates and reached out to touch them, but stopped when he remembered being shocked by the metal the first time he’d tried. Tentatively, he placed a finger against the iron, only to yank back at the now-familiar jolt that traveled up his arm. “You’d think I’d learn,” he mumbled as he stuck the tingling finger in his mouth.

“Careful.” Bond reached past Q and pulled the gate open all of an inch before the rusty hinges and debris on the ground stopped him. He let go of the gate and stepped aside to let Q pass.

Q took off his rucksack and slid it through the opening. He gave it a gentle toss, although he neither knew nor cared if anything inside was broken at this point. He ducked between the gates keeping his hands at his sides, away from the metal.

He was halfway through when his jacket snagged and caught against one of the bars. “Shit,” he muttered. He tried to pull himself free, but his jacket wouldn’t budge. He barked out a somewhat desperate laugh and pleaded, “A little help here?”

Bond tried to free the jacket from the bars but gave up almost immediately. “Take it off. I’m not cutting you out of it. With the day we’re having, I’d slip,” he said grimly.

Trapped halfway out, Q realised there was no way he could do that without potentially shocking himself again. “I actually can’t get out of this thing without touching any of the gate. Can you at least unzip the front and pull my arm out?”

Apparently, Bond didn’t get shocked; that or he didn’t react when he squeezed in beside Q and got his arm around Q’s body. He felt over Q’s chest until he found the tab.  “Sorry,” he murmured as he unzipped the parka. “I’ve never done — Actually, I have, though it was the bars for a prison cell,” he corrected with a slightly strained laugh.

Q snorted. “That surprises me not at all,” he said. Bond pulled his arm back and helped Q out of the sleeve. Once he was free, Q slid back the way he’d come, shrugging out of the trapped, destroyed parka. He turned and gave Bond a small, triumphant smile and said,  “Thank you. And honestly, I’d wager there isn’t anything you could tell me you’ve done that I’d find shocking.”

“We weren’t wearing trousers at the time,” Bond said, deadpan.

Q shook his head. “Still not shocked.” He turned back to the gate. His parka was hanging loosely against the metal. Inspiration struck, and he grabbed onto the gate through his parka. He used the leverage to push himself out the other side.

Once on the other side, he smiled in sheer relief. He was out of that particular brand of hell. He turned back to Bond and, without thinking, held his hand out for him. “Need help getting through?”

“Would it get you to strip —” Bond cut off with a little shake of his head. “Sorry. I’m fine. Go start the car so you can get warm.”

“We stay together, remember? I’m not going anywhere that’s not within reaching distance of you.”

Bond’s answering huff sounded suspiciously like a suppressed laugh. He pushed through the gate without getting caught, thanks to Q’s parka. “It’s the car. If that’s not safe, we’re buggered.” Once he was out, he started trying to untangle the torn parka. “At least get the engine started.”

Q narrowed his eyes at the back of Bond’s head. God, the man could be stubborn. “Leave the coat, Bond. It’s useless anyway. Just check the pockets while I get the keys.” He crouched down in front of his rucksack and unzipped it. He had to rummage around the bottom, but he found the keys and yanked them out.

Bond came over and exchanged the keys for a multitool and the gloves Bond had lent him. Assuming Bond wouldn’t want to wear blood-filled gloves, Q shoved everything into the rucksack.

Bond pulled off his jacket and then held it out. “Here. Put this on.”

Q opened his mouth to protest, but sighed instead. He took the jacket and slid it on. He had to admit, it was really warm. Warmer than even his parka had been earlier. “You know. This overbearing need to be protective all the time would be adorable if it wasn’t such a bloody nuisance,” he said with a little laugh as he tried to hide how grateful he actually was.

“I can’t remember the last time I was called ‘adorable’,” Bond said wryly. He picked up Q’s rucksack and went for the SUV, unlocking it with a welcoming chirp of the key fob.

When Q turned towards Bond, only then did he notice the blood all over the back of his shirt. “I knew that sodding cut was still bleeding,” he commented. “Does it hurt at all?”

Bond didn’t answer until they were both in the car. He turned off the heater before starting the engine. “It’ll heal,” he finally said.

“Before or after you end up in Medical with a raging staph infection?”

Bond huffed and put the car into reverse. “You’re probably right,” he admitted. “Though you’re the one who used your own bloody finger to mark doors. Your tetanus jab won’t help with that.”

“Yes, well, that’s completely beside the point.” Q reached over and eased Bond forward in his seat. “Mine’s a simple paper cut. You, on the other hand.” He ran his hand gently over Bond’s back, noting with a bit of alarm just how much blood was soaked through. “I’m fairly certain a sucking chest wound bleeds less than this has.”

Bond leaned back, trapping Q’s hand, and twisted to back the SUV away from the gate. “I’ve survived that, too. Collapsed lung in the Navy.” He shot Q a quick, tight grin. “I can play this game all bloody day, Quartermaster.”

“And what game would that be?” Q asked, his voice catching at the end. Bond still hadn’t released his hand. But he wasn’t exactly trying to free it, either.

“Count the scars.” The look in Bond’s eyes reminded Q that field agents tended to seek distraction after a mission. Physical distraction.

And after the day they’d just had, Q could easily understand why.

Q slid his hand out and sat back against the door. “You need that shoulder tended to, and I have an excellent first aid kit.” He smirked at Bond. “Once I’m satisfied, feel free to show me whatever scars you’d like.”

There was no mistaking the intent behind Bond’s expression. He put the SUV into gear and started down the road, driving just a bit too quickly. “There’s a first aid kit in the back. We could pull over — once we’re away from here.”

Knowing that Bond’s invitation had nothing to do with first aid and everything to do with burning off their mutual adrenaline, Q hummed and turned to sit up straight in his seat. Casually, he said, “That’s probably best. Wouldn’t want that shoulder to go _too_ long without being looked at.”

Bond nodded, glancing up in the rearview mirror. Q turned to look at the back window, as well, watching as the gates slid away behind them. When they were finally out of sight, Bond let out a breath and relaxed against the seat.

Feeling unaccountably relieved to have escaped, Q settled back and looked down, thinking about the welcome distraction of counting Bond’s scars. They were lucky to have come out of the asylum with just one more each. He rubbed his thumb across his cut finger, smudging the blood, and only then realised the blood was tacky, not freshly flowing.

Curious now, he cleaned it off using the cuff of Bond’s ruined jacket. Though dark with dirt and dried blood, the wound itself had healed. “It stopped,” he murmured wonderingly.

“What?” Frowning, Bond glanced away from the road to look at Q’s finger. “ _Now_ it’s stopped?”

Q held out his finger for Bond to inspect. He gave a tiny, relieved smile and said, “It’s healed. Perhaps yours has as well.”

“It must...” Bond turned his attention back to the road and leaned forward. “Check?” he asked tightly.

Q nodded and undid his seatbelt. He leaned over the centre console and gently worked one finger into the rip in Bond’s shirt, watching for a flinch or sign that he was hurting Bond. “I don’t feel any fresh blood,” he said as he drew his hand back, cringing a bit at just how much blood Bond had lost.

Bond sighed in relief and sat back, throwing Q a brief smile. “We should still pull over to check.”

“Absolutely,” Q agreed.

Bond’s smile took on a satisfied edge. “You’re friends with Mallory.”

Q looked over at Bond, surprised by the turn of the conversation. “Yes. Why? Did you want him to join or something?”

“I have no plans to share you with anyone,” Bond said possessively. “But if he ever sends us back here, I’m shooting him. Consider that fair warning.”

Q swallowed down the hysterical laugh that threatened to escape him. Not only were they free from the asylum, but if Bond’s past reputation and current attitude were anything to go by, he was in for some truly mind-blowing sex. It sounded like the _perfect_ way to forget everything that had happened that day.

Smiling to himself, Q straightened up in his seat again. “Well, as you say, he and I are friends,” he noted. “So, if _anyone_ will be shooting him, it’s going to be me.”

“I wouldn’t say this to anyone else, but you’re welcome to borrow my gun.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, 007, but you seem to be forgetting one very important fact. It’s _not_ your gun.” Q smiled ferociously back at Bond. “It’s mine.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find us both on tumblr at [kryptaria](http://www.kryptaria.tumblr.com/) and [stephrc79](http://www.stephrc79.tumblr.com/). Come say hi!


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